feScottrade Data Breach Leaks Contact Info For 4.6 Million Customers

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If you’re a T-Mobile customer who donated money through Patreon, you’re already having a bad enough day due to massive breaches of user data. Here’s hoping you’re not also one of the 4.6 million Scottrade customers whose contact info was compromised.

According to KrebsOnSecurity.com, Scottrade has confirmed to customers in an e-mail that hackers may have stolen their contact info, possibly including Social Security numbers. The target of the breach, according to Scottrade, was “client names and street addresses.”

“Based upon our subsequent internal investigation coupled with information provided by the authorities, we believe a list of client names and street addresses was taken from our system,” reads the e-mail. “Importantly, we have no reason to believe that Scottrade’s trading platforms or any client funds were compromised. All client passwords remained encrypted at all times and we have not seen any indication of fraudulent activity as a result of this incident.”

The breach is not recent, reports Krebs. Rather it appears to have occurred sometime between late 2013 and early 2014.

Krebs theorizes that, rather than traditional ID theft, the contact info could have been used to target Scottrade customers in e-mail stock scams.

The company is offering a year of free credit monitoring to affected customers. As always, anyone whose info is stolen in one of these breaches should keep a close eye on their finances and credit, and report anything out of the ordinary right away.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist