58,000 users’ personal data was potentially compromised in Byte Federal data breach.
Bitcoin ATM Giant Byte Federal Suffers Data Breach: 58,000 Users Affected
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Byte Federal Suffers Data Breach
Byte Federal, one of the largest bitcoin ATM providers in the U.S. has disclosed a data breach impacting approximately 58,000 users. This is according to a consumer breach notification letter Byte Federal sent out to its users on Nov. 27.
According to the letter, Byte Federal discovered the intrusion on Nov. 18 after it happened on Sept. 30. It claimed that an anonymous hacker used a flaw in third-party software to get into the company’s network. The flaw was found in the well-known development platform Gitlab.
Furthermore, a document sent to the attorney general of Maine, Byte Federal said that hackers attempted to obtain 58,000 customers’ personal information, including names, addresses, phone numbers, government-issued identification, social security numbers, transaction history, and user photos.
Since then, Byte Federal which runs more than 1,200 bitcoin ATMs (electronic kiosks that allow users to buy and sell cryptocurrency) throughout the U.S. has changed its internal passwords and hard reset all customer accounts.
The firm is also carrying out a forensic investigation to ascertain the incident’s cause and extent with the help of an independent cybersecurity team. In the meantime, Byte Federal assured its users that there was no compromise of user monies or assets.
This incident has once again brought to the fore concerns about the security of crypto-related services and the information they manage. Hopefully, this breach on Byte Federal’s system is a one-off incident and users can continue to trust the effectiveness of the firm’s security protocols for managing user data.
