Coinbase, the world's third-largest cryptocurrency exchange, was hit by a $20 million extortion attempt after cybercriminals recruited "multiple contractors or employees working in support roles outside the United States to collect information from internal Coinbase systems to which they had access", and to leak user data, the company said according to CoinTelegraph.

According to a May 15 blog post and an 8K filing with the SEC, Coinbase said a group of external actors bribed and coordinated with several customer support contractors to access internal systems and steal limited user account data.

"These insiders abused their access to customer support systems to steal the account data for a small subset of customers," Coinbase said. In an email to clients, the exchange said that the leaked information "did not include your password, seed phrase, private keys, or any other information that would allow someone to directly access your account or your funds and Coinbase Prime was untouched";