In November 2022, the cybersecurity group vx-underground claimed on social media that unknown hackers had breached the now-defunct Bitcoin ATM provider Coin Cloud, according to a recent TechCrunch report. According to vx-underground, the hackers said they stole 70,000 customer photos and the personal data of 300,000 customers. This sensitive personal information allegedly included social security numbers, dates of birth, full names, email addresses, phone numbers, occupations, physical addresses, and more.
However, over a month later, many questions remain unanswered about this alleged hack. Nobody has publicly taken credit for the reported breach and details remain scarce, even to Coin Cloud’s new owner, Bitcoin ATM.
Coin Cloud filed for bankruptcy in February 2022 after operating thousands of cryptocurrency ATMs across the U.S. and Brazil. In July, the assets of Coin Cloud were acquired by Bitcoin ATM, a company owned by Andrew Barnard, who also owns another crypto ATM provider, Bitstop.
Barnard told TechCrunch that upon learning of the vx-underground claims, his company launched an investigation into the Coin Cloud systems but found no concrete evidence of a recent breach. Barnard believes outdated Coin Cloud systems were breached multiple times in the past by various actors. He assumes the allegedly stolen customer data is from one of those previous attacks.
A former Coin Cloud employee raised concerns about Coin Cloud’s poor security practices during its operational years before bankruptcy. They claim Coin Cloud had no dedicated security team, stored customer data in unencrypted plaintext, and was hacked at least once in 2022.
With Coin Cloud’s systems and infrastructure now defunct after bankruptcy proceedings, Barnard admits it’s virtually impossible to determine precisely when or how the reported hack occurred. The culprits behind the alleged data breach remain shrouded in uncertainty.
While the vx-underground claims have not been definitively proven, they raise troubling questions about how the sensitive personal information of hundreds of thousands of Coin Cloud customers may have been compromised – and whether new owner Bitcoin ATM can prevent further data leaks. For now, the true scale and impact of the reported Coin Cloud hack continue to mystify.
