The largest cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase blocked the extortion attempt.
Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States by intraday trading volume and the first crypto exchange to enter the US stock market, is launching a bug bounty program following a recent extortion attempt.
The scammer demanded 450,000 euros (27 Bitcoin) from Coinbase after making a false claim about stealing customer confidential data.
This week, the attacker sent a letter to Coinbase, saying that he had decrypted the confidential data of all cryptocurrency exchange user accounts.
The “hacker” threatened that if 450,000 euros (27 Bitcoin) were not credited to his account, he would publish all the data on the network.
Later, the company’s security service contacted the attacker and confirmed that such statements were fake.
“This is a completely baseless attempt at extortion. The man falsifies information to appear legitimate and he is simply trying to extort money from companies. I’m sure we’re not the first company on their list, and we’re not the only scam they’re doing,” Jeff Lunglhofer, chief information security officer at Coinbase, told CoinDesk.
But in any case, we don’t know for 100% if it’s fake or not. For a quick and safe exchange of cryptocurrencies, we recommend using our service (paynote.eu).
