Cryptocurrency exchange Huobi addressed the fact that client phone numbers were surfacing online, in the wake of rival exchange Binance’s KYC hack earlier in the month.
Dark Web Sellers
According to a report published by news outlet The Block, several sources have said that Huobi user information has been surfacing on dark web marketplaces. The news comes just week after leading crypto exchange Binance allegedly suffered a KYC breach that saw personal information for users being spread through a Telegram chat. Binance has been hacked before for 7,000 BTC that got stolen off of its hot wallet back in May.
The anonymous sources claim that the same security concerns that implicated Binance in the breach apply to other cryptocurrency exchanges–a fact that has become clearer with Huobi user details allegedly emerging on the dark web. Hackers have been flaunting the sale of user information belonging to Huobi clients for the past week, with one Chinese dark web market offering the data for $0.30 a piece.
The data in question involves the phone numbers of users and the text messages they received when withdrawing from the exchange, which can be used for a phishing scam by would-be criminals.
According to the report,
“One seller, who claimed to be a hacker, promised that these phone numbers are “absolutely real” and can yield a high pick-up rate, suggesting that potential scammers can expect responses when reaching out to these numbers. The hacker even added that these phone numbers’ ‘convert rate is decent for conducting a pyramid scheme.’”
In addition to Huobi, dark web hackers were offering user data from exchanges BIKI, Hetbi and ZDCoin.
Huobi Responds
The Block was able to reach Huobi head of marketing Ross Zhang, who claimed that at least some of the user data being sold through dark web portals was false. According to Zhang, they ran user data being sold against their own database and found “only a negligible portion of the phone numbers are associated with Huobi accounts.”
He continued,
“We suspect that the hacker is using Huobi’s name as a gimmick for their own business interests.”
A Huobi spokesperson speculated that the user data being peddled on the dark web may have been acquired through alternative routes, such as a third-party messaging provider.
