Binance Issues Warning After BitMEX Mass Email Leak

Binance has told its customers to take precautions as BitMEX announces a mass leak of its users email addresses from an internal error. 

BitMEX Displays Private Data in Mass Email

Recently, BitMEX users discovered that they could openly view the email addresses of other users after they received an official email related to an update. BitMEX sent the email to everyone and mistakenly listed all the email addresses in carbon copy (CC) rather than in blind carbon copy (BCC), which allowed all of the addresses to be seen.

BitMEX just doxxed its users in the most outrageously incompetent way imaginable: forgetting to use blind copy on mass email. Someone must be cleaning out their desk already. https://t.co/KmARzImxnk

— Jake Chervinsky (@jchervinsky) November 1, 2019

The incident raised privacy concerns, with some observers arguing that a simple apology will not be enough.

Nevertheless, so far, BitMEX presented its apologies, admitting in an official statement that it was aware of the situation and is investigating the issue. The exchange said:

Our team have acted immediately to contain the issue and we are taking steps to understand the extent of the impact. Rest assured that we are doing everything we can to identify the root cause of the fault and we will be in touch with any users affected by the issue.

Binance Reaches Out to its Users

Victims of the leak should take protective measures and change their email addresses on BitMEX, or ensure 2-factor authentication is enabled.

Binance CEO, Changpeng Zhao, also reached out to potential victims who might also have a Binance account linked to the same email. He urged people to use unique email addresses for each crypto exchange account to prevent widespread issues.

Use a unique email address and unique password for each exchange. Use a password manager to remember the strong passwords for you. https://t.co/hWjDldPRLN

— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) November 1, 2019

The crypto community is very concerned with BitMEX’s level of incompetence.

As for the update, BitMEX was trying to share news that the crypto derivatives exchange is undertaking important changes to the weights of its crypto indices. The move is meant to improve the fairness of crypto prices that BitMEX users trade against.

“We will achieve this by calculating index weights based on observed trading volumes across a broader set of index constituent exchanges. Volume data is obtained directly from each such exchange via API connection,” the company explained.

The affected indices are .BXBT (which tracks Bitcoin every minute), .BETH, .BETHXBT, .BXRPXBT, .BBCHXBT, .BLTCXBT, .BEOSXBT, .BADAXBT and .BTRXXBT.

What do you think about BitMEX’s leak? Share your thoughts in the comments section!

Images via Shutterstock, Twitter: @jchervinsky, @cz_binance