Phishing Attacks on Binance and Kraken..."AI Blocks Damage"

Doohyun Hwang

Summary

Phishing attacks targeting Binance and Kraken were detected and blocked early by internal AI security systems.
Coinbase reported that it suffered customer data leaks due to cybercrime, estimating recovery costs of up to $400 million.
Recently, global cryptocurrency exchanges have been strengthening security in response to the increasing trend of phishing attacks.

It has been revealed that phishing attacks similar to the recent customer information leak incident disclosed by the global cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase have also been attempted on major exchanges such as Binance and Kraken.

According to Bloomberg on the 16th (local time), there were indications that hackers attempted to bribe customer service employees of each exchange through Telegram.

They approached customer service employees of Binance and Kraken via the Telegram messenger, demanding sensitive information such as customer balances and addresses. However, both companies stated, "Our internal artificial intelligence (AI) security system detected and blocked the attack attempts early," and "No customer information was leaked."

Recently, phishing attacks targeting cryptocurrency exchanges have been on the rise. Previously, Coinbase disclosed in a filing submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) the day before that "a customer service employee was bribed by cybercriminals, allowing access to some customer data and account management records."

Coinbase estimated that this incident could result in recovery costs and customer compensation costs of up to $400 million.