Coinbase Breach Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (COI0262702111725)

In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the Coinbase breach identified under incident ID COI0262702111725.

The analysis begins with a detailed overview of Coinbase's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coinbase, the number of followers: 1220202, the industry type: Financial Services and the number of employees: 6751 employees

After the initial compromise, the video explains how Rankiteo's incident engine converts technical details into a normalized incident score. The incident score before the incident was 586 and after the incident was 534 with a difference of -52 which is could be a good indicator of the severity and impact of the incident.

In the next step of the video, we will analyze in more details the incident and the impact it had on Coinbase and their customers.

On 11 May 2023, Coinbase disclosed Data Breach, Extortion and Insider Threat issues under the banner "Coinbase Extortion Attempt Involving Stolen Customer Data".

Cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase disclosed an extortion attempt by an unknown threat actor who demanded $20 million in exchange for not publishing stolen customer data.

The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting Customer support tools, and exposing Names, Addresses and Phone numbers, with nearly Fewer than 100,000 records at risk.

In response, teams activated the incident response plan, moved swiftly to contain the threat with measures like Termination of compromised employees and Securing customer support tools, and began remediation that includes Offering $20M bounty for perpetrator information, Reimbursing victims of related scams and Enhanced monitoring for phishing attempts, and stakeholders are being briefed through Public blog post, SEC 8-K filing and Customer advisories warning of imposter scams.

The case underscores how Ongoing (cooperating with law enforcement), teams are taking away lessons such as Vulnerability of insider threats, especially in overseas operations; importance of monitoring for bribery/social engineering risks among support agents; need for robust customer education on phishing scams post-breach, and recommending next steps like Strengthen insider threat detection programs, particularly for overseas employees with access to sensitive data, Implement stricter access controls and logging for customer support tools and Enhance employee training on bribery and social engineering tactics, with advisories going out to stakeholders covering Warnings issued about imposter scams targeting customers; commitment to reimburse victims of related fraud.

Finally, we try to match the incident with the MITRE ATT&CK framework to see if there is any correlation between the incident and the MITRE ATT&CK framework.

The MITRE ATT&CK framework is a knowledge base of techniques and sub-techniques that are used to describe the tactics and procedures of cyber adversaries. It is a powerful tool for understanding the threat landscape and for developing effective defense strategies.

Rankiteo's analysis has identified several MITRE ATT&CK tactics and techniques associated with this incident, each with varying levels of confidence based on available evidence. Under the Initial Access tactic, the analysis identified Valid Accounts: Cloud Accounts (T1078.004) with high confidence (95%), supported by evidence indicating bribing a small group of customer support agents to copy data from internal tools and Data from Cloud Storage Object (T1530) with moderate to high confidence (85%), supported by evidence indicating copy data from customer support tools (cloud-based internal systems). Under the Credential Access tactic, the analysis identified Unsecured Credentials: Private Keys (T1552.004) with lower confidence (10%), supported by evidence indicating no login credentials, 2FA codes, or private keys were stolen (explicitly ruled out, but tactic implied by insider access) and Valid Accounts: Local Accounts (T1078.003) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating bribing a small group of support agents to copy data from internal tools (abuse of legitimate local accounts). Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Automated Collection (T1119) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating copy data from internal tools (likely automated export of bulk customer records) and Data from Local System (T1005) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating data from internal tools (PII, transaction histories, ID images collected from support systems). Under the Exfiltration tactic, the analysis identified Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol: Exfiltration Over Unencrypted/Obfuscated Non-C2 Protocol (T1048.003) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating stolen customer data (exfiltrated via unspecified means, likely non-C2 channels like personal email/cloud storage) and Automated Exfiltration: Traffic Duplication (T1020.001) with moderate confidence (65%), supported by evidence indicating copy data from internal tools (possible duplication of database exports or API queries). Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Interruption of Resource Availability (T1659) with lower confidence (30%), supported by evidence indicating remediation costs between $180 million and $400 million (operational disruption from breach response), Data Encrypted for Impact (T1486) with lower confidence (0%), supported by evidence indicating data exfiltration (no encryption; included for contrast—explicitly ruled out in incident), and Data Manipulation: Staged Content (T1657) with moderate to high confidence (75%), supported by evidence indicating extortion attempt by an unknown threat actor who demanded $20 million (data staged for leverage in extortion). Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Indicator Removal: File Deletion (T1070.004) with lower confidence (40%), supported by evidence indicating no details on log tampering (implied by lack of detection until extortion attempt; low confidence) and Impair Defenses: Disable or Modify Tools (T1562.001) with lower confidence (30%), supported by evidence indicating lack of real-time monitoring for unauthorized data copying (possible evasion of existing controls). Under the Persistence tactic, the analysis identified Account Manipulation: Additional Cloud Roles (T1098.003) with lower confidence (20%), supported by evidence indicating no evidence of backdoors (low confidence; insider access could imply persistent role abuse). Under the Reconnaissance tactic, the analysis identified Gather Victim Org Information (T1591) with moderate to high confidence (85%), supported by evidence indicating targeted overseas customer support agents in India (geographic/role-specific reconnaissance) and File and Directory Discovery: Local File Search (T1222.001) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating copy data from internal tools (implies prior discovery of data locations). Under the Privilege Escalation tactic, the analysis identified Valid Accounts: Default Accounts (T1078.001) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating customer support agents (possible abuse of default/shared support tool privileges). These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.