An Extortion Gone Bad: Inside Binance's Negotiations With Its 'KYC Hacker'

The Takeaway Prior to publishing details about real Binance customers online Wednesday, a hacker operating under the pseudonym "Bnatov Platon" had a month-long conversation with CoinDesk reporters.

In what appears to be an elaborate game of hackers hacking hackers, an individual operating under the pseudonym "Bnatov Platon" has provided CoinDesk with extensive information about their attempts to obtain millions of dollars in exchange for declining to release information about customers of one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Binance.

Information about the hack, gathered over a month-long interaction with the hacker, was pushed into the public eye today when Platon began posting what he alleged were images and information about real Binance customers, first on an open website and then on Telegram.

In conversations with CoinDesk, Platon has claimed they are a "White hat hacker" and, in a few comments, suggested they were asking Binance for a bug bounty for exposing the information.

Negotiations broke down and Platon and Binance representatives reported that he asked for 300 bitcoin in order to further expand on the data he held.

Further, Platon sent CoinDesk code that he described as accessing a back door placed in Binance servers by an "insider.

When confronted with this information at the time, a Binance representative said, "As of the latest from the team, there is currently no evidence that these are KYC images from Binance and they are not watermarked per our system process.

In earlier conversations with CoinDesk, Platon claimed to be independently wealthy, and the operator of a crypto exchange he says is one-third the size of Binance.

Despite Platon's allegedly altruistic aims, CoinDesk later learned from Platon and Binance officials the supposed white hat hacker was requesting 300 bitcoin, about $3 million at July's exchange rate, paid in 50 installments for his information.

Speaking with a Binance representative on July 22 Platon said, a "current interest of mine is those hackers and insider in your company.