The stock and crypto investment broker Robinhood has been the victim of a cyber attack. The company announced on Monday after the US market closed that unauthorized intruders had gained access to the personal data of numerous users in the past week and had demanded a ransom.
According to previous knowledge, the attack stole the email addresses of around five million customers and the full names of around another two million, said Robinhood on the company blog. If there were more than 300 users, additional data such as birthdays and postcodes were also tapped.
Robinhood does not assume that sensitive information such as bank details or social security numbers have been stolen or that users have suffered financial losses. After the attack on November 3, the company quickly notified the judicial authorities and called on an external IT company.
According to Robinhood, the security gap has now been closed. For the time being, the company did not provide any information as to whether the requested ransom had been paid. Robinhood’s shares reacted after the hours with significant price losses. The online broker had problems with hackers in the past.
Robinhood, based in Silicon Valley, is a trading platform specially designed for small investors, on which users can invest in financial products with little money. The broker was recently in the headlines in connection with the stock market turbulence around the computer game dealer Gamestop. There was criticism of Robinhood here because the company had restricted the purchase of shares in Gamestop and other companies after retail investors had previously triggered an extreme price increase.