Late last night, Bitcoin payment processing company Coinbase released an announcement via its community platform. According to the head of support, the company had discovered a phishing attack earlier that morning, an attack involving an email that requests users to accept a new terms of service agreement and – in the process – sign into their account.
Upon signing in, the account would authorize an attempt to remove BTC from the user’s wallet. According to Coinbase, only a few individuals have been affected and the company has promised to reimburse them for the coins lost while it investigates further.
The announcement in full:
This morning we discovered a phishing attack that came via email, requesting users to click to accept New User/Service Agreement.
This prompted users to sign in to their accounts and authorize a malicious application to remove bitcoin from their Coinbase Wallet.
We found this malicious application relatively quickly, and we shut it down. Only a small number of users were affected, and we will be reaching out to them directly.
We will be reimbursing the affected users the bitcoin that they lost, while we continue the investigation.
To stop this from happening again, we are reassessing our API/application approval process, as well as re-visiting the limits of money that can be sent over an application.
Lastly, we began to talk about how we can proactively reach out customers and educate them on how to use their Coinbase Vaults as a more secure way of storing their bitcoin.
We appreciate the feedback and patience with this matter.
The Coinbase Team
It is nice to see the matter quickly resolved with no parties left out of pocket (except Coinbase, for the coins it must reimburse, of course). Well played, Coinbase. This is the latest in a string of such attacks. Are you one of the few users affected? Do you have any more information on the specifics or how many coins were lost? If so – let us know!
Images courtesy of Flickr and Coinbase.