Gemini allegedly suffered data breach; 5.7 million emails leaked

Users’ emails, account numbers and partial phone numbers were allegedly leaked.

Cryptocurrency exchange Gemini appears 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 customers’ account numbers, 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.

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. Gemini currently has 13 million active users.

Security breaches in the Web3 industry, even if mild in nature, can have serious consequences. One such incident took place in April this year and involved cryptocurrency hardware wallet manufacturer Trezor. Hackers gained access to Trezor users’ email addresses by breaching a third-party newsletter provider and then utilized the information to target users in a phishing scam, leading to losses. 

Cointelegraph has reached out to Gemini for comments but has not received a response by press time. This is a developing story and will be updated accordingly.