The Microsoft Outlook breach may have been to steal cryptocurrency from users

The recently reported Microsoft Outlook breach takes a new turn as some users reported the reasons behind the breach: cryptocurrency theft.

According to a Microsoft Outlook user Jevon Ritmeester, the hackers were able to access his inbox and get information about his account from Kraken, a cryptocurrency exchange, that enabled the hackers to withdraw his Bitcoins:

“The hackers also had access to my inbox allowing them to password reset my Kraken.com account and withdrawal [sic] my Bitcoin,” Jevon Ritmeester, a Microsoft user that the company alerted to the data breach, told Motherboard in an email, referring to popular cryptocurrency exchange Kraken.

The user further explained that the hackers set up an email forwarding rule that tags any email with Kraken and automatically forwards it to a Gmail account. The user presumed that this Gmail account is owned by the hackers. These emails include password reset and Bitcoin withdrawal requests. The users later found out upon checking his Outlook account’s trash folder that such requests were indeed executed by the hackers.

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