Coinbase Sim Swapping SaltedAvocadosMhh

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Coinbase

Reddit user SaltedAvacadosMhh reports losing 1.5 BTC that was stored on Coinbase. While they used two-factor authentication, and not SMS-based two-factor authentication on CoinBase itself, the backup of the 2FA was stored in their email. This allowed the attacker to get into their CoinBase account simply by breaching the email account.

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

About Coinbase

"Coinbase is a secure platform that makes it easy to buy, sell, and store cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and more." "As the leading mainstream cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, Coinbase has become a standard on-ramp for new crypto investors. Coinbase offers a wide variety of products including cryptocurrency investing, an advanced trading platform, custodial accounts for institutions, a wallet for retail investors, and its own U.S. dollar stable-coin."

"Coinbase was founded in 2012 and is a fully regulated and licensed cryptocurrency exchange supporting all U.S. states except Hawaii. Coinbase initially only allowed for Bitcoin trading but quickly began adding cryptocurrencies that fit its decentralized criteria." "Its list expanded to include Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, XRP, and many others with the promise of more as long as its requirements are met."

"The ability to port your SIM card to another device is a service that mobile carriers provide to their customers. It allows a customer to request their phone number be transferred to a new device. In most cases, this is a perfectly legitimate request; this happens when we upgrade to a new phone, switch mobile carriers, etc."

"A “SIM port attack”, however, is a malicious port performed by an unauthorized source — the attacker. The attacker ports your SIM card to a phone that they control. The attacker then initiates the password reset flow on your email account. A verification code is sent from your email provider to your phone number — which is intercepted by the attacker, as they now control your SIM card."

"My Coinbase Account was broken into by a T-Mobile Sim Swap Attack. There wan unauthorized Sim Swap Done on 2/25."

"Accounts Hacked - Coinbase, Gmail, Yahoo, Dropbox" "IP of Attack and Location Reported - Washington, United States. 104.200.129.53"

"I had 2FA ... but they knew that my number, email, and coinbase account to hack. The sim swap allowed them into emails and found possible found Goog Auth numbers. Coinbase didn't flag anything such as new device activation, recent password reset, and strange behavior like transferring everything out as suspicious enough to flag." "Had 2FA but they broke into my emails and drop box, did a password reset to coinbase, and possibly found the google auth code while digging through all my stuff. Coinbase also should detect fraud due to a new iP, recent new device, and massive transfer."

"In other words you saved your backup codes to your email which was not protected by 2FA. You basically went from having 2FA to single point of failure. Reset email PW via SMS --> Recover 2FA tokens backedup unencrypted in email --> Reset Coinbase password --> BTC gone."

"Too be fair, OP did not use SMS 2FA on his coinbase account. He used Google Authenticator TOTP 2FA. What OP did was store his 2FA Back Up tokens unencrypted in his email, which the attacker was able to gain access to because his email Password was reset via SMS."

"I saw a lot of posts online. Don't really see much traction. Maybe if we combine all the Sim Swap Hack Info in One Place to try and figure out what is going on we can help catch these people. Especially since there seem to be a lot of these attacks recently."

Incident reported to "Coinbase, T-Mobile, [and the] FBI". Coinbase hasn't yet "responded to [their] emails or unlocked [their] account [as of March 9th]."

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

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 - Coinbase Sim Swapping SaltedAvocadosMhh

Date	Event	Description
February 25th, 2020 3:28:00 AM MST	Main Event	Expand this into a brief description of what happened and the impact. If multiple lines are necessary, add them here.

Technical Details

This section includes specific detailed technical analysis of any security breaches which happened. What specific software vulnerabilities contributed to the problem and how were they exploited?

Total Amount Lost

The total amount lost has been estimated at $15,000 USD.

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?

General Prevention Policies

Backups to 2FA must be stored fully offline.

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.