Cryptocurrency Fraud , Cybercrime , Fraud Management & Cybercrime

Crypto Industry Figures Blackmailed by Revolut's Hacker

The hacker who stole data from digital financial platform Revolut obtained the personally identifiable information of multiple high-risk individuals, prompting warnings for these customers' personal safety.

After directly notifying affected customers on Saturday, Revolut publicly confirmed that it fell victim to a social engineering attack involving requests for customer data issued using a legitimate - but subverted - government email account.

"Fraudsters exploited a legitimate government email domain that passed Revolut's technical authentication checks - SPF/DKIM/DMARC - to send deceptive information requests," said threat intelligence firm Kela in a Tuesday report.

"Mistaking these demands for authentic official orders, Revolut's compliance and legal team manually released sensitive files for a limited group of users," Kela said.

Founded in 2015, London-based Revolut operates banks in 30 countries, and offers digital banking, multi-currency accounts, cryptocurrency exchange, insurance and other financial services through its mobile app. The company this month said it has over 80 million customers worldwide, and it's reportedly eying an initial public offering next year that could value the company at up to $200 billion.