Gemini Third Party Data Breach

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Gemini Exchange/Logo

After a data breach, multiple Gemini users reported that they had received sophisticated phishing emails to their Gemini account email addresses. Many of the emails attempted to trick users into providing their seed phrase to upgrade their wallets to avoid losing their funds in anticipation of the Ethereum merge. Emails may have started as early as October 3rd, and the breach was finally reported on December 14th.

This is a global/international case not involving a specific country.

About Gemini

"Turn your money into crypto assets - The secure way to buy, sell, store, and convert crypto. Millions use Gemini to diversify their portfolios."

"Gemini currently has 13 million active users"

"Gemini currently has 13 million active users"

"A third-part vendor related to Gemini appeared to have suffered a data breach on or before Dec. 13. According to documents obtained by Cointelegraph, hackers gained access to 5,701,649 lines of information pertaining to Gemini customers’ email addresses and partial phone numbers. In the case of the latter, hackers apparently did not gain access to the full phone numbers, as certain numeric digits were obfuscated. After the news came to light, Gemini has since clarified in a blog post that the breach appeared to be "result of an incident at a third-party vendor" but also warned of ongoing "phishing campaigns" as a result of the data leak."

"The leaked database did not include sensitive personal information such as names, addresses and other Know Your Customer information. In addition, some emails were repeated in the document; thus, the number of customers affected is likely lower than the total rows of information."

"Some Gemini customers have recently been the target of phishing campaigns that we believe are the result of an incident at a third-party vendor. This incident led to the collection of Gemini customer email addresses and partial phone numbers. No Gemini account information or systems were impacted as a result of this third-party incident, and all funds and customer accounts remain secure."

"The worrying thing is that my (receiving) email address ONLY exists in my Gemini account and nowhere else. I setup custom email addresses for every service I use, and I only use my personal domain for a limited number of trusted accounts. I use Gmail and Yahoo accounts for risky or throw away accounts."

"I use email aliases so each online account has a specific email linked to it. This phishing attempt went to the email used by and only by my Gemini account. Thankfully I have no funds there but this was a complex phish and twitter has another example of an SMS-based Coinbase phishing attempt."

"The Gemini exchange also went briefly offline during the day after issues surrounding the data leak were brought to light. The exchange is fully functional at the time of publication [of a CoinTelegraph article]."

"Some Gemini customers have recently been the target of phishing campaigns that we believe are the result of an incident at a third-party vendor. This incident led to the collection of Gemini customer email addresses and partial phone numbers. No Gemini account information or systems were impacted as a result of this third-party incident, and all funds and customer accounts remain secure.

In light of these increased phishing campaigns, we are sharing security best practices with our customers."

""Not handled well." This was how one user described the revelations brought forth by Cointelegraph on Dec. 14 regarding the leak of 5.7 million Gemini customers’ email addresses and partial phone numbers. Shortly after publication, multiple users reached out to Cointelegraph alleging that the leak, which Gemini attributes to a “third-party incident,” happened much earlier than initially understood."

This is a global/international case not involving a specific country.

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 - Gemini Third Party Data Breach

Date	Event	Description
October 3rd, 2022	Potential Earlier Breach	Reddit user ljapa reports receiving a suspicious email to their account which is only registered with Gemini. "I can confirm what OP is reporting: email unique to Gemini and receipt of the same spam email. Looking at mail logs, I can see another odd one on 03 October with a subject line of “The Merge has happened.” I no longer have that email."
November 14th, 2022 6:37:42 AM MST	Reddit Breach Post	NFT phishing email targets one of the users of Gemini, believed to be due to the data breach.
November 29th, 2022 7:34:53 PM MST	Reddit Breach Post	A user reports that their Gemini-only email address was used to send them a MetaMask phishing attack email.
December 6th, 2022 6:54:45 PM MST	Reddit Breach Post	"I just got an email claiming that my Exodus wallet was linked to the Binance exchange from Bermuda (phishing of course). I ONLY use that particular email address at Gemini. I just wanted to post this to see if there was a known breach in the past that I can't find record of, or if anybody else all of a sudden is having the same problem."
December 8th, 2022 9:40:52 AM MST	Gemini Aware of Breach	"When I asked Gemini, they confirmed a breach at a third party vendor. Customer emails and partial phone numbers. When I asked if they were planning on informing users, they said thanks for the feedback."
December 14th, 2022 8:03:17 AM MST	CoinTelegraph Article	CoinTelegraph picks up and reports on the "third party" data breach at Gemini.
December 14th, 2022 11:59:45 AM MST	CoinTelegraph Article	CoinTelegraph repors that users are claiming that the email leak at Gemini, affecting 5.7 million customers, occurred much earlier than initially reported by the platform. Following Cointelegraph's revelations about the leak on December 14, users reached out, asserting that the incident took place earlier than understood. Reports of users receiving targeted phishing emails surfaced on the official Gemini subreddit in the weeks prior, with Redditors detailing instances dating back to November. Gemini representatives responded to these claims, stating that they were reporting the incidents to their security team. While Gemini emphasized that no account information or systems were impacted, users expressed concerns about the platform's handling of the breach and reported phishing attempts. Gemini has not disclosed the date of the security incident.
December 15th, 2022 4:22:16 AM MST	Gemini Posts Notice	The first time the Internet Archive captures a posted notice dated December 14th, which Gemini posted as a warning, acknowledging that "[s]ome Gemini customers have recently been the target of phishing campaigns that we believe are the result of an incident at a third-party vendor".

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

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.