Robinhood, the popular online trading app, has announced that the emails and related personal data of 5 million customers have been hacked.
The facts were recounted in a post on the official blog.
Summary
Hacker attack on Robinhood: data stolen
The company itself reassured customers that the attack had not affected corporate or customer accounts.
“An unauthorized third party obtained access to a limited amount of personal information for a portion of our customers”.
This is what the company wrote, emphasising at the same time that the breach had since been contained and that there had been:
“No financial loss to any customers”.
The company added that the hacker had also managed to breach additional data such as the date of birth and home address of 310 customers, while for 10 customers the personal data breach would be even more serious, without adding any further details.
Robinhood the crypto-friendly trader app
Robinhood is a trading platform that allows its users to trade a small basket of US stocks and major cryptocurrencies without paying commissions.
It is currently only dedicated to the US market, but may soon open up to other countries. It became famous with the sensational case of GameStop, whose record-breaking rise was fuelled by traders on the platform, thanks to the support of the social network Reddit.
In the first six months of 2021, the platform recorded a record number of transactions, thanks to the big boost from the cryptocurrency market, which accounted for around 42% of all transactions in the period.
This result was also made possible by the huge volumes of transactions on a single cryptocurrency, Dogecoin, which reached around 63% of all crypto transactions.
In May, the massive activity of its users involving Dogecoin, which shot up to 70 cents on the dollar, had sent the platform into a tailspin. Given the great success of cryptocurrency trading, Robinhood is currently testing the functionality for direct cryptocurrency withdrawals and deposits.
Robinhood’s problems
However, the platform has often been accused of being a kind of casino, and as a result of the Gamestop affair it was ordered by Wall street regulators to pay a $70 million fine.
This serious hacker attack can only put the spotlight once again on the question of security and guarantees for customers of an app that operates with methods and tools that are not very orthodox to traditional finance.
