This article is from Trend Micro.
The cryptocurrency price-tracking website, CoinMarketCap, has confirmed it was recently the victim of a large hack, which resulted in the leak of over 3.1 million email addresses (3,117,548 to be precise). Currently, the identity of the attackers is unknown. In a press release, CoinMarketCap stated:
“CoinMarketCap has become aware that batches of data have shown up online purporting to be a list of user accounts. While the data lists we have seen are only email addresses (no passwords), we have found a correlation with our subscriber base.”
While the fact that passwords were not included in the leak will be a relief to users, the hack nonetheless constitutes yet another large-scale data leak — of the sort which nowadays seem a weekly occurrence. Interestingly, CoinMarketCap has stated that the leak did not come from their own servers — which had users demanding to know where else such data was being stored.
Several other cryptocurrencies have been the victims of similar hacks recently, among them Celsius, Ledger, and BitMEX. Binance, the crypto-exchange which owns CoinMarketCap, was also targeted by an attack in 2019 which resulted in 2% of the company’s Bitcoin holdings being stolen.
Here at Trend Micro, we’ve developed an app specifically designed to meet the challenges that data leaks bring.
Available on Android and iOS, ID Security scours the dark web for any mention of your data (email address, passwords, codes etc.) in the event of it being sold or maliciously shared by cybercriminals. Its key features include: