The target: Robin Hood, a U.S based investment and trading platform.
The take: Exposure of an estimated 7 million customer accounts with Personally Identifiable Information including: 5 million email addresses and 2 million full names. For a small number of the exposed records, dates-of-birth and zip codes were also vulnerable.
The attack vector: The attacker used social engineering to target one of Robin Hood’s Customer Support Representatives, tricking them into thinking they had authentication to access the firm’s internal systems and handed over their credentials. Using these legitimate permissions, the threat actors immediately accessed the sensitive data.
This breach highlights the great and always on-going risk that social engineering attacks pose to organizations. The strongest security controls are often only as effective as the employees who maintain them. Regular awareness testing and training, along with an emphasis on the importance of critical thinking and caution when receiving access requests from third parties is critical to a robust cybersecurity posture.