Gnosis Pay says hackers got into its crypto debit card system on Nov. 3, and exposed data can tie your real name and address to your wallets.
Gnosis Pay, a company that lets people spend stablecoins with Visa debit cards linked to crypto wallets, says hackers got into the system behind its branded cards. The company announced the breach on Friday, Nov. 6. For customers, the biggest risk is not stolen money. It is that scammers may now know who you are and what you own.
Gnosis Pay says its monitoring systems spotted unauthorized access on Nov. 3. It says it began containing the problem within two hours, replaced the affected security credentials and fixed the weakness. The company has not said in the material available how the attackers got in.
One affected user, Eleftherios Karapetsas, founder of crypto portfolio tracker Rotki, posted the email he received from the company. It said the stolen data included his name, full home address, card number and every wallet address connected to his account.
Crypto wallets are usually anonymous strings of letters and numbers. A leak that links a wallet to a name and a home address removes that cover. CoinDesk, which flagged the breach on Saturday, noted that criminals could use the data to tie real-world identities to crypto holdings.
Gnosis Pay itself warned that scammers could pair stolen personal details and purchase histories to make fake messages look real. A text that mentions your actual address or a recent purchase may feel trustworthy. It may not be.
The breach hit only the system that powers Gnosis Pay-branded cards, the company's consumer business. Its enterprise platform, which runs its white-label card programs, was not affected. That system was also already scheduled to be retired on Dec. 20.
The alert box above lists the steps. The short version: distrust any message about your card or wallet, and go to the official app or site yourself. Gnosis Pay says it has made 3D Secure verification mandatory for online card payments. That is an extra check at checkout. The company has also stepped up fraud monitoring.
The old consumer system is due to shut down next month, so the risk of scam messages may outlast it. Data that has already leaked cannot be pulled back. The company has not said how many customers were affected.
The breach follows a rough stretch for crypto firms. Binance lost more than $6 billion in what is described as the largest crypto hack ever recorded, and Mercado Bitcoin said it would absorb a $40 million loss. PYMNTS Intelligence research also found that 38% of fake invoice scams and 43% of phishing incidents started with a compromised vendor or supplier.
If you used a Gnosis Pay card, treat every message about it as possibly fake and open the official app yourself instead of clicking links.
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