The largest cryptocurrency exchange in Australia, BTC Markets, is in the news again and not for the right reason. The firm has violated its customer privacy by leaking out details of private information in a mail sent out to its customers. In the news earlier gathered today, it was reported that details of about 270,000 clients, which include names and email addresses, were mistakenly revealed in a recent marketing campaign conducted by the company.
Crypto exchange made an email error to expose its user’s details
The company had recently announced its support for Spark airdrop and Tether stablecoins. On Tuesday, the firm decided to send messages via emails to its customers informing them of the new update. The mails were supposed to be sent individually or blind copy users in a bulk list. However, the exchange mistakenly sent out the market update directly to 1,000 customers per message, which mistakenly allowed other users to see the other 999 receivers’ details.
A customer named Scott Taylor quizzed the firm on twitter about it when tweeted about the anomally. In response to the anomaly on Twitter, the exchange’s CEO, Caroline Bowler confirmed that all of their customers were affected and that the mail were sent in batches rather than in bulk, which it was intended. The error leads analysts to believe that the email services use display names that individuals used in regsitering their mails; BTC Markets’ messages might have contained some pseudonyms—rather than real names well.
Crypto exchange brace up for potential hack attack
The email list leaks could lead to some hack on the exchange’s platform. Emails are used to login into their platform, and Bitcoin Markets will hope that online scammers don’t take advantage of this database release. Simultaneously, its customers are not happy with this leak.
One of its users tweeted earlier that his trust in the firm’s privacy policy has shifted as he believes that they cannot be trusted with his cryptocurrencies if they can’t handle his KYC details properly. He further went on to say that the company should do better in the future and hopes this doesn’t happen anymore.
It is worthy to note that this isn’t the first time a mistake of this sort has occurred in the cryptocurrency space. In November 2019, crypto exchange BitMEX exposed thousands of its customers’ details in the same vein. However, BTC Markets has duly apologized to its customers via their official Twitter account yesterday by saying,
“Earlier today, an announcement from BTC Markets exposed client names and email addresses. This is a deplorable situation, and we apologize wholeheartedly for it.” Analysts believe that the frequency of this sort of error could lead to a dwindling down of confidence in the cryptocurrency market. They further advised that they should do better.