Probably the world’s largest coin exchanges has begun an investigation after an anonymous user leaked portions of the personal user information on Telegram.
Binance have stated that the user leaking the information asked for a ransom to be paid in the amount of $3 million in BitCoin and threatened to expose about 10 000 photos that are showing KYC (Know Your Customer) information from Binance itself.
The Know Your Customer images are obtained by Binance to make sure that the users trading on the sites are real people and not criminals or robots. This data also includes ID cards, driving licenses. If real and leaked, this data could prove to be very devastating for the company.
Binance aims to inform uses that the leaked files belong to a previous data leak that was revealed January, 2019. At this time, a lot of different KYC data has bee listed for open sale on the dark web. And since Biace uses a unique digital watermark, they have not been able to confirm that the leaked images are In fact theirs. Here is what Binance reported on the matter:
“We would like to inform you that an unidentified individual has threatened and harassed us, demanding 300 BTC in exchange for withholding 10,000 photos that bear similarity to Binance KYC data,” the firm said in a release today informing the community of the situation. We are still investigating this case for legitimacy and relevancy. After refusing to cooperate and continuing with this extortion, this individual has begun distributing the data to the public.”
The CEO of Binance Changpeng Zhao has addressed customer complaints on social media of the data breach that the major data breach was “old news, different spin” and users should not be worried.
Ventsislav Krastev
Ventsislav is a cybersecurity expert at SensorsTechForum since 2015. He has been researching, covering, helping victims with the latest malware infections plus testing and reviewing software and the newest tech developments. Having graduated Marketing as well, Ventsislav also has passion for learning new shifts and innovations in cybersecurity that become game changers. After studying Value Chain Management, Network Administration and Computer Administration of System Applications, he found his true calling within the cybersecrurity industry and is a strong believer in the education of every user towards online safety and security.
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