One of the most famous data collectors of the world of cryptocurrencies is CoinMarketCap. Among other things, the website makes it possible to find different fundamentals of almost all existing systems in the blink of an eye cryptocurrencies to see.
Unfortunately, it was recently announced that the platform has fallen victim to a large-scale hack. At least 3.1 million email addresses of CoinMarketCap users have been stolen.
Hack
This intrusion was noticed when these email addresses were found on some hacking forums where they were traded. Have I Been Pwned, a website entirely dedicated to tracking down leaked user data, was ultimately the organization that tracked down the hack.
Meanwhile, CoinMarketCap has also admitted that a major hack has indeed taken place and that the list of stolen user data circulating in underground forums matches the list of users of the platform:
“CoinMarketCap is aware that loads of data emerged online that would represent a list of user accounts. Although only e-mail addresses are visible, we have found a correlation with our supporters.”
However, CoinMarketCap also makes it clear that only email addresses were stolen. User passwords are said to be safe for the time being. Nevertheless, the company will start an extensive investigation into the causes of the digital break-in.
It is currently unclear how such a hack could have taken place, but a CoinMarketCap spokesperson did some suspicions:
“Because there were no passwords in the data we saw, we believe it was originally from another platform where users may have used the same password on multiple sites.”
CoinMarketCap users can check if their email address was leaked in the recent hack by entering their email address at HaveIBeenPwned.com. If this is indeed the case, the advice is of course to change passwords as soon as possible.
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