The largest cryptocurrency exchange in the US, Coinbase, was hacked on Thursday, exposing flaws in centralised exchanges and raising new worries among cryptocurrency investors in the United Arab Emirates. Hackers bribed outsourced customer service representatives to obtain access to Coinbase’s internal systems in a significant cybersecurity breach that was made public on May 15.
According to media sources, this insider manipulation gave illegal access to administrative tools, jeopardising the personal information of about a million users—roughly 1% of its global clientele. Names, phone numbers, email addresses, camouflaged financial details, and official ID photos were disclosed.
Coinbase guaranteed the protection of cash, private keys, and passwords. After the attackers sought a $20 million ransom to prevent the stolen data from being leaked, Coinbase notified law enforcement. Since then, the business has fired the involved workers and assisted law enforcement.
Coinbase has promised to repay consumers duped into sending money to lessen the impact on users; the projected overall remediation cost is between $180 million and $400 million. Rayad Kamal Ayub, managing director of Rayad Group and cybersecurity specialist, described the hack as a wake-up call for cryptocurrency investors in the United Arab Emirates. He said that the usage of cryptocurrencies has skyrocketed in the MENA area, especially in the United Arab Emirates. According to a Chainalysis research, the area received an estimated $338.7 billion in on-chain value between July 2023 and June 2024, accounting for 7.5% of the global volume of cryptocurrency transactions. This implies that many users might be in danger if exchanges don’t strengthen their internal security procedures.
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