Circle Warns Its Users Of Potential Cyberattacks: Here's What To Expect

Leading firms in the cryptocurrency space were hit by a hack that successfully compromised HubSpot, a customer relations platform that helped those companies manage their customers and data.

What Happened: New reports reveal that the HubSpot breach resulted in the leak of personal data of the users of BlockFi, Swan Bitcoin, New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG) and Circle.

Circle declared in a recent statement that the breach of a HubSpot employee account resulted in bad actors obtaining the contact information. The hacked data concerns aspects of browsing activity and interest in the company's products and account manager's name (only when applicable) — but only of those users who opted in to receiving marketing communications from the stablecoin operator.

Circle pointed out that information such as social security numbers and government-issued identification were not leaked since its internal systems were not impacted by this incident and this data was not shared with HubSpot. Furthermore, customers’ funds, financial transaction data and know your customer (KYC) data were also not affected.

The firm explained that the statement is meant to warn its users so that they can take actions to protect themselves against potential attacks leveraging the newly leaked information.

Also See: Top NFT Scams And Hacks To Avoid

Why It Matters: The company wrote: "Phishing may be done using email, phone calls, voicemail or text messages. In each case, the goal is to lure you into revealing confidential information such as bank account numbers, credit card information, Social Security numbers or passwords."

Circle explained that phishing attempts often feature urgent requests, spelling and grammar errors, inconsistencies in email addresses, links and domain names and suspicious attachments. The company advised to "be skeptical of anything that seems suspicious or out of the ordinary" and promised that its employees "will never call or email you to ask for your account number, password or other confidential information."

Circle is the firm operating the USD Coin USDC/USD stablecoin that — just like Tether USDT/USD — frequently serves as a digitized dollar for on-chain transfers and trading against cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin BTC/USD.

Photo: Courtesy of Richard Patterson on Flickr