Robinhood, a stock trading and investment app, announced that attackers hacked into the accounts of its customer support employees, stole the personal data of millions of users, and attempted to extort them into paying a ransom.
https://blog. robinhood.com/2021/11/8/data-security-incident
On November 3rd, late at night, a data security incident occurred. An unapproved third party gained access to limited personal information of some customers. As a result of our investigation, the attack has been contained, no social security numbers, bank account numbers, or debit card numbers were compromised, and we do not expect any financial loss to our customers as a result of this incident.
In a blog post, the company explained that “attackers socially engineered customer support employees over the phone to gain access to certain customer support systems.
It appears that through this account, the intruder was able to access and collect a vast amount of user data.
According to Robinhood, the data collected by the hackers includes the following details.
- Email addresses for 5 million users
- Real names for 2 million users
- Name, date of birth, and zip code for 310 users
- Extensive personal information for about 10 users
Robinhood said that after detecting the intrusion, it worked with security firm Mandiant to secure the server.
At the same time, the attackers demanded that the company pay a ransom to avoid disclosing the breach.
Robinhood said it has notified law enforcement instead.
This is the company’s largest security incident to date, and while they admit that small batches of user accounts are hacked occasionally, they have never had a breach of this magnitude reported.
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