What is phishing?

One of the ways that online hackers and scammers try to get information from customers is through phishing.

Phishing is a fraudulent practice that can happen through different means of communication, including emails, SMS texts, social media posts, and fraudulent URLs. These attackers will brand themselves and pretend to be Coinbase in order to obtain sensitive information, such as passwords and 2FA codes.

To help identify what these may look like, here are some examples of different phishing scams.

Email

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When hovering over the hyperlink in this email example above, you will find that it directs you to a page that is not Coinbase.com. This is an immediate red flag – do not engage with these emails.

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Emails from Coinbase will always have the coinbase.com domain name at the end of them.

Examples include, but are not limited to:

  • support@coinbase.com

  • help@coinbase.com

  • contact@coinbase.com

  • no-reply@coinbase.com

  • compliance-kyc@coinbase.com

We also send emails from Coinbase sub-domains.

Examples include, but are not limited to:

  • contact@updates.coinbase.com

  • info@cb.mail.coinbase.com

  • @mail.coinbase.com

Regardless of sub-domain, we cryptographically sign all of our emails using DKIM and protect our domain against unsigned email with DMARC.

Website

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Take note of the URL: www-coinbase.com. The landing page may look familiar, but the dash between “www” and “coinbase.com” in the URL signifies that this is not www.coinbase.com. Scammers can create fake websites asking for sensitive information to gain control of your accounts.

Coinbase employees will NEVER ask you to share your password, 2-step verification codes, or private keys. If someone claiming to be from Coinbase asks you for this information, it is a scam.

Tip: Utilizing your browser’s bookmark function to access Coinbase websites is a good way to safeguard any URL typos. 

SMS

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If you receive a text message reporting that you’ve received digital currency that you did not authorize, it is likely a phishing attempt. Coinbase does not send out texts to verify transactions. Notice that the links here do not direct you to www.coinbase.com. Do not click these links.

Reporting phishing

Report phishing to Coinbase

Please report any Coinbase phishing sites you encounter. 

If you are a victim of a phishing attack, please immediately take action to secure your account by changing your email and Coinbase password. If you have further questions or suffered a financial loss due to this attack, please contact our support team

Report phishing to your mobile provider

If you use a US-based cell phone carrier like AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, or T-Mobile, you can help reduce phishing attacks by sending the contents of suspicious SMS messages to 7726 (SPAM). This service is free and allows mobile carriers to detect and block malicious messages on their network.