Crypto Breaches Expose 253K to Wrench Attacks
Crypto breaches in four days exposed over 253,000 customers to wrench attacks.
The breaches occurred between August 13 and 16, with SafePal losing 39,798 customer records due to a plugin flaw, Trezor losing 13,689 through its shipping provider ShipMonk's Metabase instance, and Bits of Gold losing roughly 200,000 through an analytics tool.
The stolen data includes verified proof that a person at a known address owns cryptocurrency, paired with their phone number and in some cases their government identification number. This sensitive information enables physical attacks on victims' homes or families to extort cryptocurrencies.
CertiK documented 52 wrench attacks in the first half of 2026, a 33% increase over the same period in 2025, with financial exposure reaching $124.1 million. France accounts for 63.5% of all documented cases, with home invasions linked to crypto theft rising from one case in the first half of 2025 to 20 in the first half of 2026.