Users private information was compromised only one month after Coinsquare became the first Canadian cryptocurrency trading platform to be approved by the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC).

The company is presently investigating the incident and says that it is committed to protecting the privacy of its clients.

Coinsquare reassures customers despite Data breach

In light of the recent breach of the Canadian crypto exchange, Coinsquare has reassured its clients that their assets are safe. The company claims that all client assets are stored in ‘cold storage,’ which is not connected to the internet and is therefore more difficult to hack.

They also say that the personal data that was compromised is not likely to be of use to the hacker, as it is encrypted and would require a lot of time and effort to decode. While this may be reassuring to some, others are not convinced that their crypto assets are truly safe on an exchange.

Coinsquare suspended all platform activity on November 19 as it looked into certain suspicious user behavior. However, after taking precautions over the course of many days, Coinsquare was able to gradually restore operations.

This is not the first time that a major cryptocurrency exchange has been hit by a data breach. Binance suffered a hack that saw 7,000 BTC stolen (worth around $40 million at the time). And in June of 2018, another Canadian exchange, QuadrigaCX, lost around $145 million worth of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies after the death of its founder left the company without access to its cold storage wallets.

There have been a number of high-profile hacks in the past, and many believe that it is only a matter of time before another one occurs. As such, some people are choosing to store their cryptocurrencies in offline wallets, which offer a higher degree of security.

Coinsquare reached out to customers through emails and tweets

The exchange, which bills itself as “Canada’s trusted platform to securely buy, sell, and trade Bitcoin, Ethereum, and more,” sent out an email to customers informing them of a “data incident” in which a third party gained access to a database containing personal information about exchange users.

The email states that the breach resulted in the exposure of customer names, email addresses, residential addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, device IDs, public wallet addresses, transaction history, and account balances.

Although the email was only sent out yesterday, it appears that Coinsquare actually discovered the breach last week and notified its customers via Twitter. This latest data breach is yet another reminder of the importance of online security and highlights the need for exchanges to take steps to protect their customers’ information.

“There was no leak of passwords”. The email said there was no proof that passwords had been seen by the villain.

According to Coinsquare they are committed to “protect and secure your assets, and are a leader in providing a fully transparent and secure platform”. The firm assured its customers that “100% of client assets are securely maintained in cold storage and are not utilized for business activity” in a tweet.

This news came as a shock to the crypto community, and some customers had lost faith given the recent implosion of multi-billion-dollar crypto exchange FTX.