Malta-based cryptocurrency exchange Binance has become a victim of a ransom demand from a scammer who claimed to have hacked the KYC (Know Your Customer) data of thousands of its customers.
The unknown attacker threatened the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume to release KYC information of 10,000 users if the company did not pay 300 Bitcoins—that’s equivalent to almost $3.5 million at today’s exchange value.
Although the authenticity of the hack is not confirmed yet, several photos of individuals holding their identity cards, such as passports and voter IDs, have been circulating across different online channels.
In response to the incident, Binance just released an official statement today confirming that “an unidentified individual has threatened and harassed us, demanding 300 BTC in exchange for withholding 10,000 photos that bear similarity to Binance KYC data.”
Binance said the company is still investigating the legitimacy of those images and has refused to pay the ransom and, as a result, the unidentified individual behind the demand began distributing the data online and to media outlets.
images from Hacker News
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