F Society Claims Breach of Bitfinex Security Measures

A ransomware group known as F Society recently claimed to have targeted Bitfinex, a popular cryptocurrency exchange. The group alleged that they successfully breached Bitfinex’s security measures and accessed a massive 2.5 terabytes of information, including the personal details of about 400,000 users.

In response to these claims, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, who also serves as the Bitfinex CTO, addressed the situation directly on social media. Ardoino dismissed the allegations, stating that there was no evidence of a genuine breach.

Despite Ardoino’s reassurances, F Society uploaded a page on their onion site with links to a text file containing a partial dump of usernames and plaintext passwords. However, Ardoino pointed out that Bitfinex does not store plaintext passwords or two-factor authentication (2FA) secrets in clear text in their storage systems.

The ransomware group threatened to leak know-your-customer (KYC) documents to all users if their demands for a substantial payment were not met. This raised concerns that they may have access to KYC documents spanning Bitfinex’s entire operation history.

Ardoino emphasized that the leaked data may have been aggregated from various crypto breaches, as many users tend to reuse email and password combinations across multiple platforms. Bitfinex is currently conducting a detailed analysis of its systems, and no breach has been found so far.

Furthermore, Ardoino highlighted the robust rate-limiting measures in place for the KYC platform to prevent bulk downloading of sensitive information. He also suggested that the alleged hack could be a tactic to promote a hacking tool for sale, as indicated by a message from a security researcher on a Telegram channel.

In light of these developments, Ardoino questioned the crypto community about the validity of emails compiled from previous breaches. He asked how likely it was that a database of 100k emails, collected from previous crypto hacks, would contain valid emails belonging to crypto users.

Despite these claims and speculations, Bitfinex has not provided any official response regarding the alleged breach. This incident serves as a reminder of the importance of robust security measures in the cryptocurrency space to protect user data and prevent unauthorized access.