Bitfinex chief technology officer Paolo Ardoino is rejecting rumors that the crypto exchange was a victim of a database exploit last month.
Ardoino, who also serves as Tether’s chief executive, says on the social media platform X that the database breach appears fake and that users’ funds are safe.
According to Ardoino, the details of the supposed hack don’t line up and a deep analysis of the crypto exchange’s systems revealed no breach. He goes on to note that security researchers may have jumped the gun by hyping the alleged exploit.
“Everyone [is] panicking for a potential database breach on Bitfinex. TLDR (too long, did not read): seems fake.
The alleged hackers have posted two mega links with sample data containing 22,500 records of email and passwords.
From what we could gather, the hackers collected a database of emails/passwords likely from different crypto breaches. Most users unfortunately use the same email/passwords across multiple sites.”
Ardoino praises an unnamed cybersecurity expert who he says closely examined the details of the event instead of panicking. According to the expert, the alleged data breach was essentially an advertisement for a tool that the hackers sell for a few hundred dollars.
“By creating a buzz about successfully hacking well-known companies/a university, it is an advertisement of how good their tool is and others should buy it so they can make millions of dollars by using it to exploit companies using this tool.
So it seems you are the clickbait to give this tool credence so the sellers of this tool can scam other scammers.”
Don't Miss a Beat – Subscribe to get email alerts delivered directly to your inboxGenerated Image: Midjourney