- The full scale of June’s data hack on Ledger, the largest cryptocurrency in France has been revealed.
- Over 270,000 users now have their personal data leaked online.
- Pascal Gauthier, the CEO of Ledger, has announced that there will not be any form of reimbursement for affected users.
Following the large-scale hack on Ledger, the largest cryptocurrency hardware wallet company based in France, its CEO Pascal Gauthier has announced that the company will not be reimbursing any of its users affected by the hack.
The Scale of the Hack
The hacker breached the hardware wallet provider’s marketing database in June this year and obtained the personal data of about 270,000 users. The hacker has now proceeded to release the stolen data on three different online platforms including Raidforum.
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The data released online reportedly includes 1,075,382 email addresses from users subscribed to the Ledger newsletter, and 272,853 hardware wallet orders with information including email addresses, physical addresses, and phone numbers.
On the flipside
- Since Bitcoin launched the cryptocurrencies industry in 2009, it has been a constant target for funds and data hacks.
- In February this year, Italian cryptocurrency exchange Altsbit announced that it had been hacked, stating that almost all funds had been stolen in the process.
- South Korean exchange suffered a massive breach in November 2019 when hackers made off with 342,000 ETH.
- The biggest hack to date involves Mt. Gox. Between 2011 and 2014 the exchange lost over 100,000 bitcoins which affected a total of 744,408 customers.
No Reimbursement for Affected Users
Regardless of the privacy breach suffered by thousands of users, Pascal Gauthier, the CEO of Ledger has insisted that the company will not reimburse any of its customers. Gauthier told Decrypt
When you have a data breach of this magnitude for such a small company, we won’t reimburse for a million users, all the devices, that’s just not possible. It would just kill the company.
Hudson Rock’s Alon Gal, a network security firm has explained that this leak poses a major threat to Ledger who were affected by it. In a Tweet, Gal explained that the majority of Ledger’s users have high stakes in cryptocurrencies. Releasing their personal wallet details online has opened a lot of them up to cyber harassment and hack attacks.
Users Threaten Class Action Suit
Before the information dump, users complained that they were receiving emails asking them to download malicious links, in a bid to extort the private keys to their cryptocurrencies.
Now, things have gotten much worse. Users are now receiving emails from unknown sources telling them that they know their names and house address. Some users have reported emails that threaten to come to their houses to steal their cryptocurrency unless they pay a ransom.
Many of the users affected by the hack are unsatisfied with the way Ledger has handled the incident. A Twitter user Ryan Ola said “If any lawyers want to start a class action suit, I’m sure many of us will jump on board. This has just gotten 10,000x worse now.”
Although Gauthier doesn’t deny the authenticity of the threat, he believes that it’s not likely for them to happen. He believes that the privacy breach is not enough to make any of its users consider moving house. He further advised users not to store the keys to their cryptocurrencies at home to avoid physical attacks.
