PayBito Customer Data Breach

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PayBito

PayBito is a large cryptocurrency exchange operating in the US and India. On February 3rd, 2022, a ransom group apparently gained access to the records of over 100,000 customers, including weakly hashed passwords. The group also claimed they were going to publish the records if a ransom was not paid by February 21st. There is no indication that the platform has responded or disclosed the breach to any affected users.

This exchange or platform is based in United States/India, or the incident targeted people primarily in United States/India.

About PayBito

"PayBito is the easiest and the most trusted place for individuals and institutions to buy, sell and trade a variety of Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and more." "PayBito is a Bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange trading platform for major cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ether, Bitcoin cash, Litecoin, HCX, ECR20 and many more. The platform allows purchases in INR, USD, AED and supports cryptocurrency trading pairs. Available in Web version, Android & iOS App."

"Founded Date Dec 11, 2017" "PayBito.com was founded in 2018." "Launch Date: 12.06.2018" "As of 22 November, 2019 the exchange is running a trading volume of USD238,568,498 (as per CoinMarketCap)."

"Despite its young age, PayBito became one of the top trading platforms for a global userbase. Its trading volumes are on the rise, and it even supports fiat-to-crypto and crypto-to-fiat conversion, which made it an excellent choice for those who are only entering the crypto industry now."

"PayBito is a leading cryptocurrency asset trading platform operating in USA and India. The platform is designed and operated by a team with rich experience in Banking security systems, Cryptocurrency trading and Blockchain technology. Available in iOS and Android stores, PayBito offers some of the best rates and top-notch security on the planet."

The new firm’s Managing Director, Raj Chowdhury, commented by saying that “We at PayBito are constantly upgrading our platform and include novel factors in interface features or more coin options for trading so that the users can diversify their portfolio, as well as enjoy a profit margin through the exchange of varied coins. Our team has been dedicating itself in adding more cryptocurrencies to the platform while ensuring the best price to the traders.“

"PayBito is multi-signature and security-focused. It implements advanced security protocols to protect users from cyber breaches. The exchange monitors AML and KYC checks before users can load their wallets for purchase from the app. Three-point architecture, hot wallet, multi-signature cold vault, DDoS Mitigation, firewall protection, monitoring and logging, identity and access controls and data encryption are some of the technological advancements employed by Paybito."

"PayBito, which has been showing consistent growth in trading volume, aims to offer a seamless experience to users. It is Segwit enabled and has liquidity integration with major exchanges, as well as advanced features like two-factor authentication with Firebase, GA, and BIP-32, pending transaction handling, and block confirmation tracking. The exchange offers users with an open order book a venue where they can trade in crypto as per their requirements."

"According to the attackers, PayBito used weak hashing algorithms, which makes it easy to decrypt passwords and emails of affected users. In addition, the group extracted the personal data of administrators." "The hackers say the e-mail addresses and passwords were only very inadequately protected by the Californian operating company. It is easy to decrypt the data. In addition, the cyber criminals claim that they also gained access to the addresses of the owners of the operating company."

"At the beginning of February, it was announced that the ransomware group LockBit was able to penetrate the crypto trading exchange PayBito.com. They claim to have captured the data of at least 100,000 PayBito customers on February 3rd."

"The group claimed the attack on Thursday, February 3rd on its official website on the so-called dark web accessible through the Tor browser. In its post, the operators of LockBit ransomware stated the stolen database contains personal information of customers in the United States and other countries worldwide."

"On February 8, the LockBit ransomware group claimed to have stolen substantial customer data from cryptocurrency exchange PayBito. PayBito is a cryptocurrency exchange operated by HashCash, a global blockchain, and IT services company."

"«Cryptocurrency exchange company "HashCashConsultant" > database of 100 thousand users. PD of customers worldwide, administrators, as well as emails and hashes. If you want to purchase all of this, please contact us via TOX,” write the ransomware operators." "According to the hackers, the dataset contains all important personal information of customers from the United States and around the world."

"Some of the stolen data is published on the group's Tor leak site. In this cyberattack, the ransomware group successfully stole a database containing personal data information from more than 100,000 customers worldwide. In addition, the group also stole some email data and password hashes, some of which can easily be decrypted."

"Threat intelligence feeds like Dark Tracer and Dark Feed have also tweeted (1 & 2) about the alleged ransomware attack on PayBito."

"The Californian operator Hashcash Consultants is silent on the in- house blog about the matter . There is also no message about the copied user data in the paybito.com news. The members of the LockBit extortion group had announced that they would publish PayBito data from February 21 if their demands were not met."

"To make matters worse, the gang also managed to steal the administrator's personal data, claiming that the stolen data would be released on February 21, 2022, if the ransom is not paid." "If the affected company does not pay the ransom by February 21, 2022, all of the information listed will be published online."

This exchange or platform is based in United States/India, or the incident targeted people primarily in United States/India.

The background of the exchange platform, service, or individuals involved, as it would have been seen or understood at the time of the events.

Include:

• Known history of when and how the service was started.
• What problems does the company or service claim to solve?
• What marketing materials were used by the firm or business?
• Audits performed, and excerpts that may have been included.
• Business registration documents shown (fake or legitimate).
• How were people recruited to participate?
• Public warnings and announcements prior to the event.

Don't Include:

• Any wording which directly states or implies that the business is/was illegitimate, or that a vulnerability existed.
• Anything that wasn't reasonably knowable at the time of the event.

There could be more than one section here. If the same platform is involved with multiple incidents, then it can be linked to a main article page.

The Reality

This sections is included if a case involved deception or information that was unknown at the time. Examples include:

• When the service was actually started (if different than the "official story").
• Who actually ran a service and their own personal history.
• How the service was structured behind the scenes. (For example, there was no "trading bot".)
• Details of what audits reported and how vulnerabilities were missed during auditing.

What Happened

The specific events of the loss and how it came about. What actually happened to cause the loss and some of the events leading up to it.

Key Event Timeline - PayBito Customer Data Breach

Date	Event	Description
February 3rd, 2022 2:03:00 PM MST	Main Event	Expand this into a brief description of what happened and the impact. If multiple lines are necessary, add them here.

Total Amount Lost

No funds were lost.

How much was lost and how was it calculated? If there are conflicting reports, which are accurate and where does the discrepancy lie?

Immediate Reactions

How did the various parties involved (firm, platform, management, and/or affected individual(s)) deal with the events? Were services shut down? Were announcements made? Were groups formed?

Ultimate Outcome

What was the end result? Was any investigation done? Were any individuals prosecuted? Was there a lawsuit? Was any tracing done?

Total Amount Recovered

There do not appear to have been any funds recovered in this case.

What funds were recovered? What funds were reimbursed for those affected users?

Ongoing Developments

What parts of this case are still remaining to be concluded?

Individual Prevention Policies

No specific policies for individual prevention have yet been identified in this case.

For the full list of how to protect your funds as an individual, check our Prevention Policies for Individuals guide.

Platform Prevention Policies

Policies for platforms to take to prevent this situation have not yet been selected in this case.

For the full list of how to protect your funds as a financial service, check our Prevention Policies for Platforms guide.

Regulatory Prevention Policies

No specific regulatory policies have yet been identified in this case.

For the full list of regulatory policies that can prevent loss, check our Prevention Policies for Regulators guide.