Bulletins

Coinbase to clients: Don’t flaunt your crypto wealth

Coinbase's security team has observed "cybercriminals getting even more creative and persistent in their attempts to steal assets."

Bitcoin
Image: Viktor Forgacs

Coinbase on Wednesday offered clients tips on how to secure their accounts, including resisting the urge to flaunt their crypto wealth.

"Don't brag about your cryptocurrency holdings online, just like you wouldn't advertise inheriting $50 million," Matt Muller, the company's head of security operations, said in a blog post.

Muller offered other pieces of advice, such as using a passport manager and two-factor authentication systems. He said that as "crypto trading becomes increasingly mainstream" Coinbase's security team has observed "cybercriminals getting even more creative and persistent in their attempts to steal assets."

On Monday, the Justice Department announced that it recovered $2.3 million in bitcoin ransom paid to DarkSide, the criminal group that hacked Colonial Pipeline last month.

Benjamin Pimentel

Benjamin Pimentel ( @benpimentel) covers crypto and fintech from San Francisco. He has reported on many of the biggest tech stories over the past 20 years for the San Francisco Chronicle, Dow Jones MarketWatch and Business Insider, from the dot-com crash, the rise of cloud computing, social networking and AI to the impact of the Great Recession and the COVID crisis on Silicon Valley and beyond. He can be reached at bpimentel@protocol.com or via Google Voice at (925) 307-9342.

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