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Shares of Robinhood fell Tuesday after the retail trading platform revealed a security breach that exposed the data of millions of its customers, followed by an extortion attempt.
The Nov. 3 hacker obtained the email list of about 5 million people and the full names of 2 million people for another group, the company said in a blog post late Monday night.
The company, whose growth has been driven by retail investors using its app for commission-free trades in stocks, ETFs, cryptocurrencies and options, said it was deterring the attack and did not believe any Social Security numbers, bank account numbers, etc. etc. or debit card numbers. He added that no customers suffered financial losses as a result of the hack.
But for about 310 customers, the leaked data revealed their names, birthdates and zip codes, with a subset of about 10 customers revealing more detailed account information, the company said.
Shares of Robinhood fell 3.8 percent to $36.52, which https://exness-ex.com/bonuses/ assured was close to its July 29 close of $34.82.
Robinhood said the hacker "social-engineered" a customer service employee over the phone and gained access to certain customer support systems. Social engineering is a technique used to manipulate people to gain information about an organization.
"After we localized the intrusion, an unauthorized party demanded extortion. We immediately informed law enforcement and are continuing to investigate the incident with the help of Mandiant, a leading outside security firm," Robinhood said.
While Robinhood has been popular with retail customers, it also infuriated millions of users this year when it stopped GameStop and other meme stocks from buying during a trading frenzy in January fueled by the WallStreetBets community on Reddit.
"I wish I had the hoods," WallStreetBets community member Str wrote in a comment late Monday night after the announcement of the Robinhood hack . "Wrong, it's supposed to be calls. Stocks are going up because of fines and LOL violations," community member mpoozd responded.
The put option contract essentially works as a bet that the price of the asset will fall, while the call option contract is used by traders who believe the underlying asset will rise.
"Karma for staying with the hood when you knew better," wrote The_Count_99
WallStreetBets member hi-imBen noted that other companies have had similar problems with hacking. "Coinbase, hulu, spotify, equifax, like a dozen undisclosed hacks ... Hackers have had my emails for a long time. It's a short-term effect, but I know you're all excited, exaggerating the importance of this news, so have fun!"
"Maybe someone will hack my account and do better with it than I did...," wrote HeftyResident.
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