On September 20, Nansen, a leading blockchain analytics platform, was alerted by one of its third-party vendors about a security breach. The vendor’s system was compromised, granting an attacker administrative rights to an account responsible for provisioning customer access to Nansen’s platform. Swift action was taken to halt the unauthorized access, and an immediate investigation was initiated.
The vendor in question is a reputable company, trusted by numerous Fortune 500 companies and other entities in the industry for managing customer data. Nansen has urged the vendor to make a public disclosure about the breach to ensure that other potentially affected parties are informed.
Preliminary findings from the investigation conducted over the subsequent 48 hours revealed that approximately 6.8% of Nansen’s users were affected by the breach. The impacted users had their email addresses exposed. A smaller subset of these users also had their password hashes exposed, and an even smaller group had their blockchain addresses revealed. Nansen has proactively reached out to the affected users via email, detailing the extent of their data exposure.
As a precautionary measure, Nansen dispatched emails from support@nansen.ai between 5 pm-9 pm UTC on September 21, advising affected users to reset their passwords. Users can also manually reset their passwords by visiting pro.nansen.ai/reset.
Implications for Affected Users:
- It is strongly recommended that users change their passwords. Although Nansen does not store passwords in plaintext, there’s a risk that attackers might attempt brute force attacks on accounts using the exposed email and password combinations.
- Users’ wallet funds remain secure as Nansen never requests private keys.
- Users should remain vigilant against phishing attempts and always verify the sender’s identity for any communication purportedly from Nansen.
Nansen acknowledges the gravity of the situation and the concerns of its users. The security of customer data is paramount, and the company is collaborating with the vendor, legal advisors, and cybersecurity experts to conduct a thorough investigation.
