Coinmama is one of the largest cryptocurrency brokerages in the global markets which was attacked by hackers. According to an official announcement published by this brokerage, 450000 users’ Email addresses and account passwords hashes have been disclosed.
The amount of hash is the result of applying the hash function to the password, and it cannot be used for unauthorized breaching of the user’s account. In fact, hash function acts as a one-way function and the attacker should find the suitable password which leads to generating the amount of stolen hash to be able to infiltrate the account user in an unauthorized manner, this operation is idiomatically called “hash cracking.”
In this large scale cyber-attacks 24 websites of Coinmama brokerage were hacked. This information is for the users who registered their account until August 5, 2017. Moreover, according to the published announcement, the stolen information has been published in the dark web. Coinmama has ensured its users that no cryptocurrencies had been stolen from the users’ wallets. This attack took place on February 15 due to a type of vulnerability, and Coinmama security team is investigating its further details.
It asked its users to update their accounts immediately and not do any purchase or sale except they have changed their passwords. Coinmama reaction team is monitoring and analyzing all suspicious activities and unauthorized access involving the abuse of stolen information to have an appropriate reaction in keeping users’ security. In addition to these cases, Coinmama has asked its users to choose a strong and unique password. Further, it has advised them not to open suspicious Emails and their attachments and avoid sharing personal information on any other site. Since the users’ Email was breached at dark web, users might have been attacked by Spams or contaminated by attached files to the malware. Besides, these users’ personal information can give profiteers necessary cues to crack password hash.
According to the experts, similar cases to this event have been observed in the other areas. Coffee Meets Bagel and MyFitnessPal are two victims of this vulnerability. Most of these vulnerability victims were using the PostgreSQL database. The attacker has downloaded the database content as soon as finding a way to infiltrate the system. Frequent security events at cryptocurrency brokerages can tarnish public trust in such brokerages and damage their business.
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