In February 2021, San Francisco law firm Erickson, Kramer and Osborne filed a class action lawsuit against Robinhood on behalf of Siddharth Mehta, Kevin Qian, Michael Furtado and other Robinhood customers who claimed their accounts were hacked. If you used the investing app Robinhood, you could qualify for part of a $20 million class action settlement resolving allegations that the investment app’s negligence led to personal information being leaked.
SoundCloud, Pornhub, and 700Credit all reported data breaches, but the similarities end there
As with other data breaches or data leaks, you’ll need to perform a full security overhaul. ShinyHunters is a hacking group behind some of the most significant data breaches of this year, mainly using social engineering tactics to carry out ransomware attacks that often disrupt businesses and services worldwide. The contribution of a company’s actions to a data breach varies, and likexcritical the liability for the damage resulting for data breaches is a contested matter. Estimating the cost of data breaches is difficult, both because not all breaches are reported and also because calculating the impact of breaches in financial terms is not straightforward.
Prevention
Pornhub is one of the world’s most visited adult video-sharing websites, allowing users to view content anonymously or create accounts to upload and interact with videos. When SoundCloud contained the attack, it experienced denial-of-service attacks, two of which were able to temporarily disable its platform’s availability on the web. SoundCloud is a leading audio streaming platform where users can upload, promote, stream, and share music, podcasts, and other audio content. 700Credit shut down the exposed third-party API, notified the FBI and FTC, and is mailing letters to victims offering credit monitoring while coordinating with dealers and state regulators. The supply-xcritical attack demonstrates the importance of how you handle attacks. In a notice on its website, 700Credit informed media, partners, and affected individuals that it suffered a third-party supply-xcritical attack in late October 2025.
The https://xcritical.pro/ company had failed to address known risks related to remote system access. One of the most alarming discoveries was a major security breach that occurred in late 2021. The settlement announcement, made public on January 13, 2025, comes after years of regulatory investigations into the company’s practices. Popular trading app Robinhood must pay $45 million to settle charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission over a series of security and compliance failures.
But undoubtedly the most dangerous one for those affected is the 700Credit breach which provides an attacker with enough information for identity theft. Mixpanel, however, disputes that the data originated from its November 2025 security incident. An investigation found that no sensitive data such as financial or password data was accessed. According to the notice, an attacker gained unauthorized access to personally identifiable information (PII), including names, addresses, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers (SSNs). Shortly after the first reported data breach in April 2002, California passed a law requiring notification when an individual’s personal information was breached. As of 2024update, Thomas on Data Breach listed 62 United Nations member states that are covered by data breach notification laws.
Robinhood publicly disclosed the incident on November 8, 2021, after containing the intrusion and beginning its investigation. In late 2021, an unauthorized party socially engineered a Robinhood customer support employee over the phone. It was the second round of layoffs this year after Robinhood trimmed its staff by about 9% in April The two rounds combined have eliminated more than 1,000 jobs from the company, The Wall Street Journal reported. Also in August, Robinhood laid off nearly a quarter of its employees following a steep decline in trading activity on the app. In August, the company announced it was laying off nearly a quarter of its staff.
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This May, Robinhood agreed to a $9.9 million payout to settle a separate class-action lawsuit filed by users who alleged site outages in March 2020 prevented them from trading just as the market plummeted in the earliest days of the pandemic. In June 2021, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority ordered Robinhood to pay more than $70 million in fines and restitution for violating financial regulations and giving customers false and misleading information. Here’s what you need to know about the Robinhood settlement, including who is eligible for a check and how much money they could receive. «We continue to take numerous steps to safeguard accounts, including using hashing algorithms, encryption, two-factor authentication and other account security measures,» Moskowitz said in a statement shared with CNET. Robinhood deputy general counsel Lucas Moskowitz said the company takes security very seriously. Approximately 40,000 customers say their Robinhood accounts have fallen prey to cyberattacks, according to court filings.
- To news media, the size of the brand, how many users were impacted, and how it was done often dominate the headlines.
- Protect your, and your family’s, personal information by using identity protection.
- Robinhood’s cybersecurity system «lacks simple and almost universal security measures used by other broker-dealer online systems, such as verifying changes in bank account links,» according to a February 2021 complaint.
- In an extortion demand sent to Pornhub, the notorious hackers claimed to have taken a data set including about 94GB of records detailing email addresses, location, video titles, search keywords, activity types, and timestamps for over 200 million entries, Bleeping Computer reported.
What happened in the Robinhood data breach?
- Many companies hire a chief information security officer (CISO) to oversee the company’s information security strategy.
- Robinhood has agreed to pay $45 million in civil penalties to settle several Securities and Exchange Commission charges, including that it failed to address vulnerabilities which led to a data breach and that it violated recordkeeping provisions by allowing off-channel communications.
- Even if a customer does not end up footing the bill for credit card fraud or identity theft, they have to spend time resolving the situation.
- The exposed data consisted of email addresses and information already visible on public SoundCloud profiles.
- A person’s identifying information often circulates on the dark web for years, causing an increased risk of identity theft regardless of remediation efforts.
Robinhood Markets General Counsel Lucas Moskowitz said in an emailed statement that the firm is “pleased to resolve these matters” and that it’s “well-positioned to continue leading the industry in xcritical scammers developing the innovative products and services our customers want and need to participate in U.S. and global financial markets.” Additionally, Robinhood Securities alone was charged with failing to provide complete and accurate securities trading information, known as blue sheet data, to the SEC; and that from 2019 to 2023 it failed to comply with a regulatory framework designed to address abusive short selling practices. These breaches represent multiple violations of federal securities laws designed to protect investor interests.
million records exposed in massive Pornhub data breach — here’s what we know so far
If malware is involved, the organization must investigate and close all infiltration and exfiltration vectors, as well as locate and remove all malware from its systems. To stop exfiltration of data, common strategies include shutting down affected servers, taking them offline, patching the vulnerability, and rebuilding. Daswani and Elbayadi recommend having only one means of authentication, avoiding redundant systems, and making the most secure setting default.
He argues that these costs are reduced if the organization has invested in security prior to the breach or has previous experience with breaches. The threat of data breach or revealing information obtained in a data breach can be used for extortion. Originating in the 2000s, the dark web, followed by untraceable cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin in the 2010s, made it possible for criminals to sell data obtained in breaches with minimal risk of getting caught, facilitating an increase in hacking. Many companies offer free credit monitoring to people affected by a data breach, although only around 5 percent of those eligible take advantage of the service. Of those that are, most breaches are detected by third parties; others are detected by employees or automated systems.
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According to the motion for settlement filed July 1 in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, Robinhood «used substandard security practices and lacked security measures used by other broker-dealer online systems,» leading to multiple data breaches. He writes about IT (cloud, IoT, 5G, VPN) and cybersecurity (ransomware, data breaches, laws and regulations). Several data breaches were enabled by reliance on security by obscurity; the victims had put access credentials in publicly accessible files. Opportunistic criminals may cause data breaches—often using malware or social engineering attacks, but they will typically move on if the security is above average. According to a 2020 estimate, 55 percent of data breaches were caused by organized crime, 10 percent by system administrators, 10 percent by end users such as customers or employees, and 10 percent by states or state-affiliated actors.
For additional support, users are encouraged to reach out to Robinhood’s customer service for further assistance. This method of attack underscores the evolving tactics of cybercriminals and the need for comprehensive security training and measures that cover all aspects of an organization. The exposed data included email addresses. The breach reportedly impacted the personal information of approximately 7 million users. The Robinhood cyber attack affected more than 7 million people in total, with varying degrees of data exposure across different groups. The investigation confirmed the attack vector was social engineering and helped define the scope of the data exposure.
Like almost all terms in cyber security, the definition of ‘data breach’ is context dependent. Although prevention efforts by the company holding the data can reduce the risk of data breach, it cannot bring it to zero. The legal ramifications of this security breach are now unfolding as we witness a significant class action lawsuit data breach case against Robinhood. While we’ve seen previous security incidents at Robinhood, including a breach in October 2020 that affected nearly 2,000 accounts, the xcritical incident’s scope is unprecedented for the platform.
She has long had an interest in personal security, both online and off, and also has an appreciation for martial arts and edged weapons. This is also a good time to sign up for one of the best identity theft protection services. The next most important step is to watch out for phishing attempts and social engineering attacks. First, you’ll want to make sure that your passwords are all updated, particularly for any accounts involved in the breach.
Law enforcement agencies may investigate breaches although the hackers responsible are rarely caught. In the United States, breaches may be investigated by government agencies such as the Office for Civil Rights, the United States Department of Health and Human Services, and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Gathering data about the breach can facilitate later litigation or criminal prosecution, but only if the data is gathered according to legal standards and the xcritical of custody is maintained. Containing the breach can compromise investigation, and some tactics (such as shutting down servers) can violate the company’s contractual obligations. Once the exact way that the data was compromised is identified, there is typically only one or two technical vulnerabilities that need to be addressed in order to contain the breach and prevent it from reoccurring.
Adult website Pornhub has revealed some of its Premium members had their data compromised as part of a third-party supply xcritical attack. Amber Bouman is the senior security editor at Tom’s Guide where she writes about antivirus software, home security, identity theft and more. Passwords, payment details, and financial information remain secure and were not exposed.”
Data breach notification laws in many jurisdictions, including all states of the United States and European Union member states, require the notification of people whose data has been breached. If a breach is made known to the company holding the data, post-breach efforts commonly include containing the breach, investigating its scope and cause, and notifications to people whose records were compromised, as required by law in many jurisdictions. A data breach, also known as data leakage, is «the unauthorized exposure, disclosure, or loss of personal information». The plaintiffs must demonstrate actual user damages or imminent risk of harm to establish standing in court, a crucial requirement in data breach litigation. Legal documents indicate that the company failed to implement appropriate security guardrails before the cyberattack.The case encompasses multiple theories of liability.