eToro denies breach despite claims on hacking forum

While attackers claim to have obtained names and deposit amounts of eToro users, the company insists its systems were not breached.

Threat actors claim they obtained a cryptocurrency investor email database from eToro, an Israeli social trading company with 30 million users.

An ad on a popular hacking forum alleged the attackers obtained eToro investors’ names, email addresses, country of origin, IP addresses, deposit amounts, and deposit platforms.

The supposed data sample attackers provided depicted the data of several individuals, revealing the worth of assets they hold. The sample accounts also have time stamps next to them. The latest timestamp is from the end of July 2022, indicating the data could be recent.

Revealing such data poses significant threats to users. Threat actors could use the information to target victims with tailor-made attacks that build on user nationality and asset worth.

The user who posted the data on the hacking forum was permanently banned, limiting any attempts to verify the legitimacy of the breach or pinpoint how the data was obtained. Meanwhile, eToro denied the company was involved in a data breach.

“We are aware of the claims being made on the Breached Forum. Our investigations indicate that there has been no breach on eToro’s side, and we believe that any advertised data stems from another source unrelated to eToro,” the company told Cybernews.

eToro said it will continue closely monitoring the situation and reminded users to always rely on unique passwords and employ two-factor authentication (2FA) practices.

We’ve followed up by asking the company to clarify where eToro suggested the data came from if it was not taken from its systems, but we did not receive a reply before press time.

The company has suffered data breaches in the past. In 2020, threat actors accessed 62,000 eToro user accounts and later put them up for sale. The 2020 breach included information on user email addresses, names, passwords, addresses, and some trading activity details.

eToro is a multi-asset platform that allows investors to access different financial assets such as stock, crypto, commodities, and currencies. The company specializes in social trading, a practice allowing users to partake in complex financial mechanisms without expert knowledge. eToro was established in 2007.