Reinforcing our customers account security with enhanced password protection

Tl;dr: We are excited to announce the expansion of our enhanced password protections. By protecting the first layer of our user’s account protection, their passwords, we are continuing our commitment to offer our customers with the best security tools to protect their funds and accounts.

By Abhishek Agarwal, Group Product Manager

At Coinbase, one of our core pillars has always been the online safety and security of our customers. We believe that our customers need to have access to industry leading security features without sacrificing ease and convenience. Therefore, providing a safe, secure, and easy-to-use customer experience is our continuous commitment to all of our current and future customers.

With multiple online accounts to keep track of, it’s inevitable that our customers find it difficult to manage their passwords and sometimes end up re-using their favorite passwords across multiple online products and accounts. According to Google/Harris Poll data, two in three people re-use the same password across multiple accounts. Of all the survey participants (ages 16–50+), 51% admitted that they use one particular “favorite” password for the majority of their accounts. Unfortunately, this is not the best solution for their online security: by using the same key for multiple accounts, if one password happens to be breached, all of their other accounts are at risk of being compromised too.

Since 2019, Coinbase has been monitoring third-party credential breaches and darknet markets for indications that a reused password might be putting Coinbase accounts at risk. This feature (which automatically monitors existing Coinbase accounts at no additional cost) has helped protect tens of thousands of users since its launch. Today, we are happy to announce that we’re expanding our enhanced password protections to continuously cover users, starting from the moment they sign up to the rest of their journey with us, and protect them from using compromised passwords in their Coinbase accounts.

With this enhanced security measure, every time a customer creates or changes their password, we will automatically check to see if their selected password was exposed in any third party data breach and suggest the usage of a different & more secure password. With this extra protection, we are helping our users to be safer with a safer shield for the first layer of their account security.

Our commitment to our customers’ safety and security is always top of mind, and this update is another step to make our customers experience safer and easier to use. At Coinbase, we’re proud to lead the way in providing the best security protections to all of our 98+ million users.

If you want to learn more about our Password security measures, feel free to access this help center article.