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Title: Coinbase Data Breach Will 'Lead To People Dying,' TechCrunch Founder
Says

Link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/05/20/20522...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Decrypt: The founder of online news
publication TechCrunch has claimed that Coinbase's recent data breach "will
lead to people dying," amid a wave of kidnap attempts targeting high-net-
worth crypto holders. TechCrunch founder and venture capitalist Michael
Arrington added that this should be a point of reflection for regulators to
re-think the importance of know-your-customer (KYC), a process that requires
users to confirm their identity to a platform. He also called for prison time
for executives that fail to "adequately protect" customer information. "This
hack -- which includes home addresses and account balances -- will lead to
people dying. It probably has already," he tweeted. "The human cost,
denominated in misery, is much larger than the $400 million or so they think
it will actually cost the company to reimburse people." [...] He believes
that people are in immediate physical danger following the breach, which
exposed data including names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, government-ID
images, and more. Arrington believes that in the wake of these attacks,
crypto companies that handle user data need to be much more careful than they
currently are. "Combining these KYC laws with corporate profit maximization
and lax laws on penalties for hacks like these means these issues will
continue to happen," he tweeted. "Both governments and corporations need to
step up to stop this. As I said, the cost can only be measured in human
suffering." Former Coinbase chief technology officer Balaji Srinivasan pushed
back on Arrington's position that executives should be punished, arguing that
regulators are forcing KYC onto unwilling companies. "When enough people die,
the laws may change," Arrington hit back.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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