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

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.