(Bloomberg) — Kraken, one of the world’s oldest crypto exchanges, said it’s being extorted by a criminal group that claims to have access to some client account information.
Client funds were never at risk, Nick Percoco, chief security officer for Kraken, said in a post on the X social network on Monday. The exchange didn’t say how much was being sought by the group.
Some limited client information — including names and addresses — may have been stolen when client support staffers took photos and videos of the data during two incidents, in 2025 and earlier this year, according to a person familiar with the matter who declined to be named because the details haven’t been made public. The company told about 2,000 clients who may have been affected to be careful with outreach to them, the person said.
A spokesperson for Cheyenne, Wyoming-based Payward Inc., which operates under the name Kraken, declined to comment on what client information was exposed.
Customer support has been a frequent target of attacks on crypto exchanges in recent years. Hackers bribed customer service agents at Coinbase Global Inc., for example, to steal client data, and then demanded a $20 million ransom to delete it. Kraken was able to repel a similar attack at that time.
“What we are seeing is a shift toward the human layer,” said Ari Redbord, global head of policy and government affairs at TRM Labs. “As technical defenses get stronger, the focus moves to the people inside the system, especially those whose job is to be accessible and helpful.”
Earlier this month, the decentralized finance project Drift was hit by a hack that drained nearly $300 million in digital assets from the protocol in what industry observers speculated appeared to be a social-engineering-driven attack.
Kraken is “actively working with federal law enforcement across multiple jurisdictions to pursue all individuals involved and bring them to justice,” Percoco said in the X post.
The extortion comes at a time when the crypto market is still facing headwinds, with Bitcoin down more than 40% since its all-time high in October. A slew of rival crypto exchanges went public last year, and Kraken is preparing to eventually go public as well.
It’s also coming amid increased fear among crypto owners of being targeted by criminals. Physical attacks against crypto holders – known in the industry as wrench attacks – increased last year, according to Chainalysis.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
