{"id":29003,"date":"2025-05-15T19:08:27","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T19:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/crypto-exchange-coinbase-faces-up-to-400m-hit-from-cyber-attack\/"},"modified":"2025-05-15T19:08:27","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T19:08:27","slug":"crypto-exchange-coinbase-faces-up-to-400m-hit-from-cyber-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/crypto-exchange-coinbase-faces-up-to-400m-hit-from-cyber-attack\/","title":{"rendered":"Crypto exchange Coinbase faces up to $400m hit from cyber attack"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Tom Gerken<\/span><\/p>\n

Technology reporter<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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One of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency firms, Coinbase, says a recent cyber attack will cost it up to $400m (\u00a3301m).<\/p>\n

The firm said it was contacted by hackers who claimed to have gained access to customer information, obtained by making payments to Coinbase contractors and employees.<\/p>\n

In a blog post<\/a>, Coinbase said the criminals had gained access to “less than 1%” of its customer data, which they then used to impersonate the firm and trick people into handing over their crypto.<\/p>\n

The group then demanded $20m from Coinbase to keep it quiet – but it refused to pay the bribe and instead promised to pay back every person who got scammed.<\/p>\n

The disclosure prompted the firm’s share price to fall by 4.1%.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The cyber attack comes days before the US company is set to join the benchmark S&P 500 index – a landmark moment for the crypto industry.<\/p>\n

It also reflects how, as it grows, the industry has increasingly become a target for cyber criminals.<\/p>\n

A report from research firm Chainanalysis suggests funds stolen from crypto businesses totalled $2.2bn in 2024.<\/p>\n

“Security remains a challenge for the crypto industry despite its growing mainstream acceptance,” said Nick Jones, founder of crypto firm Zumo.<\/p>\n

“As our nascent industry grows rapidly, it draws the eye of bad actors, who are becoming increasingly sophisticated in the scope of their attacks.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

‘Harshest penalties’<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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The company says it received an email from an “unknown threat actor” on May 11.<\/p>\n

“We will reimburse customers who were tricked into sending funds to the attacker,” it said in its statement.<\/p>\n

“We’re cooperating closely with law enforcement to pursue the harshest penalties possible and will not pay the $20 million ransom demand we received. <\/p>\n

“Instead we are establishing a $20 million reward fund for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the criminals responsible for this attack.”<\/p>\n

In a filing with the US Securities and Exchanges Commission<\/a>, it estimated costs between $180m and $400m.<\/p>\n

It said this figure came from “remediation costs and voluntary customer reimbursements”, however this figure could change as a result of “potential losses, indemnification claims, and potential recoveries”.<\/p>\n

The staff members who shared customer information with the hackers have been fired.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Coinbase told its customers to expect further attempts from scammers in the future, and advised them to be vigilant.<\/p>\n

“Coinbase will never ask for your password, 2FA codes, or for you to transfer assets to a specific or new address, account, vault or wallet,” it said. <\/p>\n

And it warned customers they should lock their accounts if they are suspicious.<\/p>\n

“To the customers affected, we’re sorry for the worry and inconvenience this incident caused,” it said. <\/p>\n

“We’ll keep owning issues when they arise.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Tom Gerken Technology reporter Getty Images One of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency firms, Coinbase, says a recent cyber attack will cost it up to $400m (\u00a3301m). The firm said it was contacted by hackers who claimed to have gained access to customer information, obtained by making payments to Coinbase contractors and employees. In a blog […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[10023,1073,10044,7292,3158,3354,616,129],"class_list":["post-29003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech","tag-400m","tag-attack","tag-coinbase","tag-crypto","tag-cyber","tag-exchange","tag-faces","tag-hit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29003"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29005,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29003\/revisions\/29005"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}