The security of Coinbase accounts and funds is now put into question because of an alleged hacking incident that took away a large amount of money.
Spouses Jared and Tanja Vidovic said their account on “the world’s most trusted crypto exchange” was hacked, and their money amounting to $170,000 was stolen in a blink of an eye, prompting them to say the company has poor fraud protection.
“All these people investing think their money is safe and it’s not,” Vidocic said. The Tampa firefighter lamented the money they lost was for their future and that it was her two-and-a-half year’s salary.
The SIM swap method
Investigation on the case of the Vidovics revealed that their Coinbase account was hacked through the SIM swap method.
Someone pretending to be Tanja called her cell provider Cricket Wireless and requested her SIM card containing her pictures, contracts and apps to be electronically transferred to a new phone. After that, the perpetrators created an email to serve as backup. Since they also now have her phone number, the hackers were able to use a two-factor verification process to access her Coinbase account.
The suspects were able to make changes and transfer all of the account’s money from the app to their wallet in an instant.
Nothing can be done according to Coinbase
To add insult to injury, the thought that the cryptocurrency exchange won’t do anything about the spouse’s losses was both infuriating and lamentable.
According to Jared, when they called Coinbase to notify the company about the incident eight hours after they noticed the malicious activity in their account, the exchange responded, “none of the transactions can be frozen or reversed.”
Image courtesy of Cointelegraph News/YouTube