Rich by Coin

Brian Armstrong, co-founder and CEO of Coinbase, the largest US crypto exchange, has shared a post thanking the Hyderabad Police for arresting an ex-Coinbase customer service agent allegedly involved in a $400 million cyberattack scheme. We have zero tolerance for bad behavior and will continue to work with law enforcement to bring bad actors to justice, Brian Armstrong writes, adding, “Thanks to the Hyderabad Police in India, an ex-Coinbase customer service agent was just arrested.” Another one down and more still to come, he concluded his post. The crypto exchange was hit by a cyber attack earlier this year that breached account data of a small subset of its customers, the company said.

Coinbase then confirmed that a group of rogue overseas customer support agents, bribed by hackers, were involved in a targeted data breach aimed at extorting the company and deceiving customers. At the time, the company estimated that the attack could cost up to $400 million. A company spokesperson confirmed the latest arrest. The company said it has filed charges against a man from Brooklyn accused of running a long-running impersonation scam that targeted Coinbase customers.

The affected data included: Names, addresses, phone numbers, and emails; Masked Social Security numbers (last 4 digits); Masked bank account numbers and some identifiers; Government ID images (e.g., driver’s licenses, passports); Account balances and transaction history; Limited internal documents and communications; Coinbase Prime and wallet infrastructure (hot/cold wallets) were not impacted. Coinbase also said it expects to incur costs of approximately $180 million to $400 million in incident remediation and customer reimbursements.

Brian Armstrong, Coinbase’s co-founder and CEO, publicly thanked the Hyderabad Police for arresting an ex-Coinbase customer service agent tied to a $400 million cyberattack. Armstrong wrote that there is zero tolerance for bad behavior and that Coinbase will continue to work with law enforcement to bring bad actors to justice. The arrest comes after Coinbase disclosed that a group of rogue overseas customer support agents, bribed by hackers, carried out a targeted data breach aimed at extortion and deceiving customers. Coinbase had estimated the attack could cost up to $400 million in damages.

A company spokesperson confirmed the latest arrest. Data affected included names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, masked Social Security numbers, government ID images, and some identifiers; Coinbase Prime and wallet infrastructure were not impacted. Coinbase also said it expects incident remediation and customer reimbursements to total roughly $180 million to $400 million. The company emphasized its ongoing commitment to transparency and cooperation with authorities.