Canadian Crypto Exchange Coinsquare Suffers Data Breach

Coinsquare, Canada’s first IIROC-registered cryptocurrency exchange, recently suffered a data breach that exposed users’ personal information.

The term data breach herein shall be understood as any breach of security in which confidential, sensitive, or protected data is disclosed, viewed, copied, transmitted, stolen, or used by unauthorized persons.

Coinsquare, which bills itself as a trusted cryptocurrency platform that provides trading security, sent a private email to its customers on November 26, 2022, reporting a “data incident.”

In an email, Coinsquare acknowledged that its customer database containing personal information was exposed during the incident and potentially accessed by third parties. The leaked database includes users’ personal information such as names, residential addresses, email addresses, device IDs, phone numbers, dates of birth, transaction history, public wallet addresses, and account balances. 

The exchange also confirmed that passwords are not exposed and that customers’ assets are “safe in cold storage and not at risk.” Although no bad actors were found to have access to compromised data on the exchange, the official communication warns users to change 2-factor authentication (2FA), and passwords and utilize different credentials for different platforms.

The data breach comes a month after it became the first Canadian cryptocurrency trading platform to be registered by the Investment Industry Regulatory Commission of Canada (IIROC). Coinsquare had to suspend operations on November 19 to investigate unusual activity on its platform.

It’s important to note that the email was sent on November 26, 2022, while the exchange discovered the breach last week and notified its customers via Twitter. The exchange suspended activity on its platform after discovering a vulnerability last week. Then restored full-service yesterday.

The exchange tweeted:

“We want to reiterate that 100% of client funds are safely held in cold storage and are not used for business activities.”

Coinsquare IIROC Registration

Currently, Coinsquare has more than 500,000 customers and access to more than 40 cryptocurrencies. Since its inception in 2014, crypto exchanges have facilitated approximately $5.82 billion in trading. Compared to the United States, Canada has a different regulatory approach. Canada requires all crypto exchanges operating in the country to be registered with IIROC. However, on October 12, 2022, Coinsquare was approved as a member of IIROC.