Paolo Ardoino, the chief technology officer of Bitfinex, has stated that the recent claims of a cryptocurrency exchange data breach were untrue.
In response to the speculations, Ardoino firmly declared that Bitfinex’s user database is still secure after conducting a comprehensive internal assessment over the weekend.
When Alice of Shinoji Research revealed on Saturday that Bitfinex had experienced a serious data breach, the accusations became public. The post—which was later removed—was predicated on claims made by the hacker collective FSociety, who took credit for the alleged intrusion on April 26.
According to the tweet, 400,000 people’s personal information and over 2.5 Terabytes of data may have been hacked.
Upon reviewing Bitfinex’s systems, Ardoino found no indication of a security issue. The CTO clarified that the relevant data was gathered from earlier, unconnected breaches rather than being taken from Bitfinex’s systems.
Reusing old login credentials, the compilation was disguised as a Bitfinex breach, raising a false alarm. Since then, Alice from Shinoji Research has withdrawn the initial assertion and issued a follow-up statement that explains the confusion.
She said that although the information comprised old data from many breaches gathered by a different entity called Flocker, it was incorrectly presented as a new occurrence.
The purpose of the deception was to mimic a ransom demand and capitalize on people’s concerns about a significant breach. According to Ardoino, this instance highlights the dangers of using the same password on several platforms, a widespread habit that might result in security flaws.
He used the occasion to encourage people to use different passwords for various services to improve security, particularly on websites that handle sensitive financial data.
