Hacker steals customer data from Circle, BlockFi, and other big crypto firms

Hubspot claimed data was stolen from “less than 30 HubSpot portals” but did not provide a list of compromised accounts.

Although crypto companies are heavily invested in cybersecurity, hackers can still get in and attack third-party vendors. This happened to NYDIG, Pantera Capital, and Circle, as well as other prominent crypto companies that revealed that their customer data was hacked over the weekend.

The companies informed their clients via email that Hubspot, an online marketing platform and sales platform, had revealed to them that a hacker had accessed their customers’ personal data.

“Pantera uses Hubspot to manage client relationships. … Pantera Capital stated that the information could have been accessed included first and last names, email addresses, and mailing addresses as well as phone numbers and regulatory classifications.

Pantera stated that its “internal” systems were unaffected by the incident and that the hacker did not gain access to any Social Security Numbers or government IDs that customers provided.

HubSpot posted the following weekend blog: The attack was described by HubSpot as a “targeted event focused on customers in the cryptocurrency industry” and claimed that a “bad actor had compromised the account of an employee.

Hubspot stated that data was exported from “fewer than 30 HubSpot portals” but did not provide a list of clients whose accounts were compromised.

The identities of some affected companies were instead made public by the companies, who alerted their customers to the problem. This common practice aims to warn customers and reduce legal exposure to such incidents. Some of these cases can lead to class action suits, while others result in fines from regulators such as the Federal Trade Commission.

HubSpot has not disclosed the extent of the hack. It’s possible that the hack was significant, given the millions of customers BlockFi and Circle have.

Circle wrote that customers’ funds, financial transactions, and know-your-customer (KYC data) were not affected but that their contact information was stolen.

Phishing is dead

It is also unclear what the hacker plans to do with the data. Many hackers will sell stolen customer data to dark web forums, where criminals can purchase the data to perform further hacking or phishing scams.

The hacker or another crook may use contact information, such as email addresses, to guess victim passwords and steal their crypto in the HubSpot cases.

Circle’s email to customers also mentioned phishing, but it didn’t explicitly state that this was the motivation for the attack.

Cloudflare recently bought Area 1, an anti-phishing service that Oren Falkowitz founded. He believes that phishing is the cause of the incident.

Phishing was the root cause of the cyber attack on HubSpot. Falkowitz, via email, stated that phishing attacks are still the root cause for 95% of cyberattacks. These attacks are dangerous, and there is no accountability for the holders of so much identity data like HubSpot. They initiate a cycle that leads to more phishing. This is something HubSpot customers have already reported.”

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