CoinBase Sim Swapping

Notice: This page is a freshly imported case study from the original repository. The original content was in a different format, and may not have relevant information for all sections. Please help restructure the content by moving information from the 'About' section to other sections, and add any missing information or sources you can find. If you are new here, please read General Tutorial on Wikis or Anatomy of a Case Study for help getting started.

Notice: This page contains sources which are not attributed to any text. The unattributed sources follow the initial description. Please assist by visiting each source, reviewing the content, and placing that reference next to any text it can be used to support. Feel free to add any information that you come across which isn't present already. Sources which don't contain any relevant information can be removed. Broken links can be replaced with versions from the Internet Archive. See General Tutorial on Wikis, Anatomy of a Case Study, and/or Citing Your Sources Guide for additional information. Thanks for your help!

CoinBase

CoinBase and other platforms commonly use SMS-based authentication to allow account recovery, as do email providers.

This resulted in a single point of failure, where an attacker can impersonate the customer to the phone provider, and request the phone service to be switched over to a device they control.

From that point forward, they can reset the email password, and any passwords to exchange accounts, withdrawing funds from platforms.

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. The diagram below outlines the attack step by step."

"On Monday (May 20), Sean Coonce, an engineering manager at crypto custodian BitGo, revealed that last week he became the victim of a SIM swap attack (he referred to this as a “SIM port hack”) as the result of which his Coinbase account got “drained” and he lost “north of $100,000.”" "According to the post, Coonce had over $100,000 siphoned out of his account on cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase in under 24 hours. Coone details SIM swapping, a practice that sees the attacker maliciously requesting a telecommunications carrier to redirect the traffic of a mobile phone number to a device over which they have control."

"[B]y this time the attacker had completed Coinbase’s password reset process with the 24-hour delay period having elapsed. Besides draining everything that was contained in his Coinbase wallet, the attacker also bought cryptocurrencies using Coonce’s funds deposited on the exchange. The attacker then moved the bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to a non-Coinbase on-chain address."

"SMS as a 2FA method [was] the most common mechanism deployed by crypto users. However, this [didn't turn] out well for the industry. There have been several reports of theft of millions of dollars using the SIM swapping method."

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

Date	Event	Description
May 20th, 2019 12:00:00 AM	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

The total amount lost has been estimated at $100,000 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?

Prevention Policies

It's recommended that platforms use factors that involve physical hardware, and more factors are always better to authenticate users.

Another strategy is to prevent withdrawals from accounts within a longer time period whenever a password is changed or there's a login from a suspicious location.

All of these methods can effectively reduce the ability to perform these types of attacks. The responsibility and incentive are shared between platform and user to prevent these situations.