The US Department of Justice is reportedly conducting a probe over Coinbase’s contracted customer service agents in India, who accepted bribes in exchange for allowing criminals access to user data.
According to a May 19 Bloomberg report, DOJ investigators are looking into the data breach, which Coinbase disclosed to the public on May 15. The exchange reported that a group of customer support contractors — subsequently fired — “abused their access to […] systems to steal the account data for a small subset of customers.”
“We have notified and are working with the DOJ and other US and international law enforcement agencies and welcome law enforcement’s pursuit of criminal charges against these bad actors,” said Coinbase’s chief legal officer, Paul Grewal, according to Bloomberg.
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Though “no passwords, private keys, or funds were exposed” according to Coinbase, the data breach resulted in social engineering attacks targeting users, including a Sequoia Capital partner, with losses estimated at up to $400 million. The attackers also attempted to extort $20 million from Coinbase in exchange for not disclosing the breach, which the company refused.
Backlash in the courts
The attempted social engineering attacks have resulted in Coinbase users filing several lawsuits against the exchange, alleging that the company mishandled their personal data. One user, a retired artist named Ed Suman, reported losing $2 million to the scammers.
Coinbase’s stock price fluctuated following the news of the breach and an unrelated probe from the US Securities and Exchange Commission over its reported “verified user” numbers. Cointelegraph reached out to Coinbase for comment but had not received a response at the time of publication.
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