Coinbase is taking a bold stand against cyber extortion, offering a $20 million bounty for information leading to the identification and conviction of criminals who attempted to blackmail the company over a recent data breach.
According to a Coinbase blog post, the attackers obtained customer data from overseas support agents by offering cash bribes. The breach affected less than 1% of the exchange’s monthly users. The hackers then demanded $20 million in Bitcoin to keep the stolen information, which includes names, addresses, and government-issued IDs, off the internet.
Refusing to comply, Coinbase launched the bounty instead and confirmed that no passwords, private keys, or funds were compromised. Coinbase Prime accounts were also unaffected.
Law enforcement is now involved, and the company has pledged to fully reimburse any impacted users. The incident comes as part of a broader wave of social engineering attacks targeting Coinbase customers.
Several users have reportedly lost large sums after being tricked by scammers posing as support staff, as highlighted in an investigation by crypto researcher ZachXBT.
This isn’t the first time Coinbase has responded to extortion with a bounty. In 2022, the company ran a similar program to track down cybercriminals.
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