Through a statement, the developers of the Robinhood trading app confirmed the detection of a security incident that involved access to some client records by an unauthorized third party. The company claims that the incident has already been contained and that sensitive data such as account numbers, payment cards or social security numbers have not been compromised.
On the cause of the incident, Robinhood believes it occurred after a member of its customer support team was targeted by a social engineering campaign, which allowed attackers to access the compromised information. The exposed records include some 5 million email addresses and the full names of 2 million people who once installed the app.
The leak also involves other details such as dates of birth, zip codes and other data, though this is limited to about 310 users. The company rules out the risk of financial fraud stemming from this incident.
Upon detecting the intrusion, the administrators of the trading platform received a message from the attackers, who demanded the payment of a ransom in exchange for not revealing the compromised information. Robbinhood’s team decided to notify authorities and ask a security firm for an investigation into the incident; the company is also directly notifying affected customers.
At the moment the identity of the group behind this attack or the amount of the ransom demanded by the hackers is unknown, although more information about it could be revealed during the coming days.
Users concerned about the security of their information stored on Robinhood’s systems are encouraged to visit the Account Security section of their app to learn about all the security options at their disposal, as well as staying on top of any phishing, social engineering or phone fraud attempts stemming from this incident.
To learn more about information security risks, malware variants, vulnerabilities and information technologies, feel free to access the International Institute of Cyber Security (IICS) websites.
He is a well-known expert in mobile security and malware analysis. He studied Computer Science at NYU and started working as a cyber security analyst in 2003. He is actively working as an anti-malware expert. He also worked for security companies like Kaspersky Lab. His everyday job includes researching about new malware and cyber security incidents. Also he has deep level of knowledge in mobile security and mobile vulnerabilities.
