Fractal ID, a blockchain-based identity tool, has released a report on a data breach on July 14, 2024. The breach, which touched about 0.5% of its users, started in 2022 when an employee used a password that had already been broken.
The account that was hacked belonged to a three-year platform operator with admin rights, which allowed the hacker to circumvent the system’s data privacy protections.
The operator didn’t follow operational security rules and training and used credentials from previous hacks, which made the breach easier. Even with these mistakes, watching the system helped lock out the attacker in 29 minutes.
On the day of the breach, Fractal ID noticed strange behaviour in one of its back offices. This behaviour was quickly recognised as a criminal attack that leaked data. Fractal ID then shut down all the hacked accounts in the system and only let top employees back in.
Fractal ID Enhances Security Post-Breach, Impacts 6,300 Users
Fractal ID has invested considerable effort into improving its security so that problems like these will never happen again. Some steps include limiting the number of requests, giving more precise permissions, keeping better records of failed authentication tries, and having more control over IP addresses.
The business contacted the proper data security authorities and the Berlin cybercrime police division. Fractal ID has also hired cybersecurity services to watch for any possible leaks of stolen data on sites known to have had data breaches.
About 6,300 users were impacted by the theft, which includes different levels of information, from full KYC checks to checks to ensure the person is who they say they are. This data may include names, email addresses, phone numbers, wallet addresses, physical addresses, and pictures of uploaded papers. Fractal ID has called users affected by the breach to inform them about it.
Julian, Julio, Lluis, and Anna, who co-founded Fractal ID, apologised for what happened and reaffirmed their commitment to keeping user data safe. They also reiterated that the company wants to move toward a self-custody storage method to make data safer.
This breach shows that keeping data safe is always hard, especially with today’s centralised storage methods. This is a stark warning of how hard it is to keep data safe. Another crypto ID provider, Autix10, said on June 27 that their online management login information had been leaked. In this case, the attacker did not get to any customer info.
As the blockchain and cryptocurrency industries continue to grow, it is still very important to have strong security measures and follow operational security policies to keep private user information safe.
