Daily Archives: May 19, 2025

Three Steps Coinbase Users Should Take After a Hack (bribe of support agents) Compromised One Million Accounts

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Data breaches are most often the work of external bad actors, but sometimes the call comes from inside the house. Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has disclosed that hackers paid off support agents—both employees and contractors located outside the U.S.—who had access to company systems to provide customer data and then demanded a $20 million ransom not to leak the information.

Coinbase was notified of the ransom demand on May 11, just a few days before reporting the incident to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The company has said the staff involved were fired and reported to law enforcement when their unauthorized access was detected, but they were still able to provide information to attackers.

What happened with Coinbase?

The threat actors, with the help of insiders with access to Coinbase systems, were able to collect personally identifiable information on roughly one million individuals (just 1% of Coinbase customers). According to a Coinbase blog post detailing the incident, the compromised data included the following:

  • Names, addresses, phone numbers, and emails
  • Last four digits of Social Security numbers
  • Masked bank account numbers and identifiers
  • Government ID images, such as driver’s licenses and passports
  • Account data, such as balance snapshots and transaction history
  • Corporate data available to support agents

The breach did not include login credentials, two-factor authentication (2FA) codes, or private keys, and hackers do not have access to customer funds, Coinbase Prime accounts, or customer hot or cold wallets.

Coinbase has said they are not paying the $20 million ransom and instead are offering those funds as a reward for information about the attack. The company is also expanding its U.S.-based support to monitor and manage the impact on customer accounts.

What Coinbase customers need to do

Coinbase sent email notifications from the address no-reply@info.coinbase.com to all affected customers—these messages went out at 7:20 a.m. on May 15. Flagged accounts will have to go through several ID checks to make large withdrawals, so you may experience delays with transactions.

First, if you were impacted by the breach, be on the lookout for impersonation scams. The aim of the attack, according to Coinbase, was to acquire customer information, reach out pretending to be from Coinbase, and use social engineering tactics to trick targets into transferring their money. Know that Coinbase will never ask for your credentials (including passwords and 2FA codes) or request that you transfer assets to another “safe” account, vault, or wallet, and they will never call or text you to give you a seed phrase or wallet address. They also will not ask you to contact an unknown number for customer support.

Second, you can also take steps to secure your account, like enabling 2FA using a hardware key and turning on withdrawal allow-listing, which limits transfers to accounts in your address book that you know and trust. If you believe your account has been compromised, lock it down and contact security@coinbase.com.

Finally, take steps to be reimbursed. Coinbase says it intends to reimburse customers who were tricked into sending funds to the attackers. You’ll find more information in the notification email.

Source: Three Steps Coinbase Users Should Take After a Hack Compromised One Million Accounts

Really good response by Coinbase – quick to report to the SEC and offering help to their customers. Unlike some companies who pretend it’s not important (Dell hack but who Dell didn’t think it was a big deal now includes customer phone numbers) or who blame the victims (23andMe tells victims it’s their fault that their data was breached. DNA data, it turns out, is extremely sensitive!) or even change their TOS after they have been hacked (23andMe frantically changed its terms of service to prevent 6.9m hacked customers from suing about losing their (and their entire family’s) DNA)

Google backs down after locking out Nextcloud Files app

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[…] Andy Schertzinger, Director of Engineering at Nextcloud, told The Register: “Google has decided to restore the permissions to our Android app so we can bring back the full file syncing functionality.”

Nextcloud expects to release an update to the app shortly, and Schertzinger paid tribute to the broader community for its support.

Nextcloud’s problem was a decision made in late 2024 to revoke its app’s “All files access” permission on Android devices. Because the permission gives apps broad access to files on a device, Google is understandably cautious about granting it, preferring developers to use more privacy-friendly access tools, such as the Storage Access Framework (SAF).

However, for a file synchronization app like Nextcloud’s, the “All files access” permission was required. And it had been granted for years until, quite suddenly, it wasn’t anymore. The result was a crippled app in the Play Store, and Google appeared to ignore repeated requests for an explanation.

Nextcloud went public with its woes earlier this week and in an unexpected turn of events, Google offered to restore the permission it had previously revoked.

In a world where words like “anti-competitive” are frequently thrown around with regard to the tech giants, Google’s action demonstrates that there are still humans in the organization capable of changing course when required. We asked the ad slinger what happened – was the original revocation the result of an automated process gone awry or an overzealous reviewer? We have yet to receive a response. […]

Source: Google backs down after locking out Nextcloud Files app • The Register

Researchers Finally Link Long Covid ‘Brain Fog’ to Inflammation

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An anonymous reader shared this report from The Hill: A new study indicates the debilitating “brain fog” suffered by millions of long COVID patients is linked to changes in the brain, including inflammation and an impaired ability to rewire itself following COVID-19 infection. United Press International reported this week that the small-scale study, conducted by researchers at Corewell Health in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Michigan State University, shows that altered levels of a pair of key brain chemicals could be the culprit.

The study marks the first time doctors have been able to provide scientific proof that validates the experiences of the approximately 12 million COVID “long-haulers” in the U.S. who have reported neurological symptoms. Researchers looked at biomarkers in study participants and found that those complaining of brain fog had higher levels of an anti-inflammatory protein that is crucial to regulating a person’s immune system, UPI reported. They also showed lower serum levels of nerve growth factor, a protein vital to the brain’s plasticity…

One of the biggest issues involving long COVID has been doctors’ inability to find physical proof of the symptoms described by patients. The study has changed that, according to co-author Dr. Bengt Arnetz.

Source: Researchers Finally Link Long Covid ‘Brain Fog’ to Inflammation

First successful demonstration of quantum error correction of qudits for quantum computers

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In the world of quantum computing, the Hilbert space dimension—the measure of the number of quantum states that a quantum computer can access—is a prized possession. Having a larger Hilbert space allows for more complex quantum operations and plays a crucial role in enabling quantum error correction (QEC), essential for protecting quantum information from noise and errors.

A recent study by researchers from Yale University published in Nature created qudits—a that holds and can exist in more than two states. Using a qutrit (3-level quantum system) and a ququart (4-level quantum system), the researchers demonstrated the first-ever experimental for higher-dimensional quantum units using the Gottesman–Kitaev–Preskill (GKP) bosonic code.

Most quantum computers on the market usually process information using quantum states called qubits—fundamental units similar to a bit in a regular computer that can exist in two well-defined states, up (1) and down (0) and also both 0 and 1 at the same time, due to quantum superposition. The Hilbert space of a single qubit is a two-dimensional complex vector space.

Since bigger is better, in the case of Hilbert space, the use of qudits instead of qubits is gaining a lot of scientific interest.

Qudits could make demanding tasks such as building quantum gates, running algorithms, creating special “magic” states, and simulating complex quantum systems easier than ever. To harness these powers, researchers have spent years building qudit-based quantum computers with the help of photons, ultracold atoms and molecules and superconducting circuits.

Stabilizing GKP qudits. Credit: Nature (2025). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08899-y

The reliability of quantum computing is heavily dependent on QEC, which safeguards fragile quantum information from noise and imperfections. Yet, most experimental efforts in QEC are focused exclusively on qubits, and so qudits took a backseat.

The researchers on this study presented the first ever experimental demonstration of error correction for a qutrit and a ququart, using the Gottesman–Kitaev–Preskill (GKP) bosonic code. To optimize the systems as ternary and quaternary quantum memories, the researchers opted for a reinforcement learning algorithm, a type of machine learning that utilizes a trial and error method to find the best way to correct errors or operate quantum gates.

The experiment pushed past the break-even point for error correction, showcasing a more practical and hardware-efficient method for QEC by harnessing the power of a larger Hilbert space.

The researchers note that the increased photon loss and dephasing rates of GKP qudit states can lead to a modest reduction in the lifetime of the quantum information encoded in logical qudits, but in return, it provides access to more logical quantum states in a single physical system.

The findings demonstrate the promise of realizing robust and scalable quantum computers and could lead to breakthroughs in cryptography, materials science, and drug discovery.

More information: Benjamin L. Brock et al, Quantum error correction of qudits beyond break-even, Nature (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-08899-y

Source: First successful demonstration of quantum error correction of qudits for quantum computers