A Brazilian firm Crypto exchange Atlas has become a victim of a security breach and over 264,000 users’ email addresses, phone numbers, and cryptocurrency amount related information might have been leaked.
The news of data hack was reported firstly by a YouTube channel in Brazil called Investimentos Digitais (Digital Investment). The channel has claimed that14,500 records out of the leaked 264,000 contain information about crypto funds deposited by Atlas users. As per the data figures, the company currently holds approx. 5,813 BTC (about $ 39 million).
The Brazil-based Atlas has confirmed that users’ funds are safe but private information of 246,000 users has been leaked.
Atlas is a somewhat controversial crypto exchange and investment platform. It is popular for a product called Atlas Quantum that lets users invest in the cryptocurrency ecosystem easily and earn from their investment ventures. These, Atlas claims, are arbitrage opportunities. The company employs over 100 people at the moment.
New breach: The Atlas Quantum cryptocurrency investment platform had 261k names, phone numbers, email addresses and account balances exposed. 24% were already in @haveibeenpwned. Read more: https://t.co/MKqKLF7WvP
— Have I Been Pwned (@haveibeenpwned) August 27, 2018
Atlas’ management posted a statement on Facebook to inform users that the platform has been hacked. The statement read:
“We became aware early on Saturday night that a security incident involving the leakage of data from our customers occurred. We are conducting an investigation with our information security advisor to understand the incident in more detail and we will cooperate with the appropriate authorities,” wrote Atlas.
According to the country’s top crypto news website Portal Do Bitcoin, the company immediately launched an investigation into the hacking incident. One of the users of Atlas’ services, who had deposited 21 BTC, was contacted to confirm the leaked list of customers, which was verified.
The list reveals that Atlas is the largest holder of Bitcoins at the company with 792 BTC in total while 205 BTC was the highest amount of crypto any user had. The list includes CoinBr.net’s owner Rocelo Lopes too, who is the largest miner of the Dash, Bitcoin, and Ether in Latin America.
Atlas acted responsibly though and soon after detecting the data breach, the company took necessary measures to ensure that digital assets and private keys of users remained protected. The technical team at Atlas is currently busy in monitoring the leaked accounts and devising additional security measures to prevent users from theft or fraud.
The reason why there has been a sudden rise in attacks on cryptocurrency exchanges is that cybercriminals are often underestimated by exchange owners, notes Group-IB. In its crypto cyberattack analysis report, the company stated that exchanges usually overlook basic security measures like maintaining strong passwords or enabling 2FA authentication.
This is why these platforms have become easy targets for cybercriminals. The message to crypto exchanges from Group-IB is loud and clear; keep strong and hard-to-guess passwords and enable 2FA authentication to remain protected from similar data breaches.
