Robinhood Suffered Data Breach, 5 Million Customer Emails Were Stolen

Robinhood suffered a data breach and more than 5 million customer emails were stolen as the hacker tried to blackmail the company but Robinhood ended up contracting the law enforcement so let’s read more in our cryptocurrency’s latest news today.

Robinhood suffered a data breach as per the announcement which saw the hacker steal more than 5 million user information that included personal information of a few users as well. In a blog post, the stock and crypto buying app described how a hacker tricked one of the customer support employees into giving out information which allowed the criminals to make off with a huge batch of data. Robinhood described the incident as follows:

“The unauthorized party socially engineered a customer support employee by phone and obtained access to certain customer support systems. At this time, we understand that the unauthorized party obtained a list of email addresses for approximately five million people and full names for a different group of approximately two million people.”

According to Robinhood, the hacker didn’t obtain sensitive information like the Social Security numbers or banking information for the affected customers but it said that in the case of 300 customers, the hacker managed to get some additional data like their birth date and home address. Robinhood added that they contacted the hacker who tried to blackmail them but then they contacted law enforcement. The company didn’t say what steps they are taking into addressing the incident but advised customers to secure their accounts and consult the Account Security menu in their app. The blog post didn’t state whether the hack affected specific segments of the customer base like the growing crypto business.

This data breach only shows the current danger posed by hackers and in particular by so-called social engineering which shows impersonating corporate executives that are trying to steal money or data. The recent hack came weeks after Robinhood became the first crypto company to offer 27/7 customer service which provided the hacker with the opportunity to steal data. Robinhood is not the only company that has been attacked and victimized lately because we saw last month that coinbase revealed that criminals figured out a way to overcome the SMS two-factor authentication and stole more info for more than 6000 customers.