Coinbase is fixing a deceptive account exercise message that has induced confusion and anxiousness, making customers assume their credentials had been compromised.
Over the previous couple of weeks, quite a few individuals have contacted BleepingComputer about issues that they assume Coinbase has a severe safety concern.
After receiving Coinbase phishing emails or texts, they logged into their accounts and checked the exercise log, discovering quite a few entries stating “second_factor_failure” or “2-step verification failed” with login makes an attempt from uncommon places.

Two-factor authentication prompts often happen after a consumer efficiently logs in with their credentials, so that they instantly thought that their passwords had been compromised and that solely 2FA saved them from their account being hacked.
This led them to alter their passwords, test for malware, and develop anxious over what they believed was a breach.
Making issues worse, these customers claimed to have a posh, distinctive password at Coinbase, and there have been no indicators of malware on their units, making them imagine that Coinbase had been breached.
Nonetheless, it seems that the “second_factor_failure” or “2-step verification failed” account exercise messages are proven in two completely different situations—when a consumer incorrectly enters the mistaken 2FA code or when somebody tries to log into their account with the mistaken password.
BleepingComputer was in a position to verify this by logging into somebody’s account with the mistaken password and the particular person telling us that their account exercise web page quickly confirmed the mislabeled 2FA error.
Comparable issues had been expressed on Reddit, the place customers receiving these alerts additionally confirmed incorrect passwords induced them.
“I believe they imply that the error doesnt [sic] give any precise element of what occurred,” a Coinbase buyer posted to Reddit.
“To me the error means somebody has the pw however not 2fa, however thats not what it means. It ought to in all probability ought to be one thing like “invalid password” if that’s what is definitely occurring.”
Coinbase has advised BleepingComputer that they’re wanting into altering the error message when an incorrect password is entered however that there is no such thing as a timeframe as to when this happens.
Sadly, BleepingComputer was advised that menace actors use these inaccurate error messages as a part of social engineering assaults that try and breach Coinbase accounts by making targets assume their credentials are compromised.
BleepingComputer has not been in a position to independently confirm if this “bug” is being abused in that method.
As a reminder, Coinbase won’t ever textual content or name you about suspicious exercise in your account, so when you obtain a cellphone name or textual content message, simply ignore it and don’t have interaction with the scammers.