Retail brokerage Scottrade has revealed that cyber-hackers attacked its network between late 2013 to early 2014 and that the names and street addresses of around 4.6 million clients were possibly stolen in the data breach.
“We have no reason to believe that Scottrade’s trading platforms or any client funds were compromised,” Scottrade said in the statement. “Client passwords remained fully encrypted at all times, and we have not seen any indication of fraudulent activity as a result of this incident.”
In a full statement released by the company, client names and street addresses appeared to be the motive for the cyberattack; and the area of the network system containing Social Security numbers and email addresses among other private data was not accessed during the incident.
The retail broker is therefore offering identity protection services to all the 4.6 million clients potentially affected in the targeted attack.
In the statement released by the company, Scottrade disclosed that they were informed of the cybercrime by federal law enforcement officials who had been investigating information theft from the company and other financial services organizations.
The company further revealed that it has no reason to believe that its trading platform or any client funds were compromised. And to this end, the passwords of clients remain fully encrypted at all times and no fraudulent activity has been recorded on account of the incident.
The identified intrusion point of the cyberattack has been secured, according to the release, and an internal data forensics investigation conducted into the incident through the help of a computer security firm.
It was further disclosed that appropriate steps have been taken to strengthen security on the network. The company assured that the information of clients will be secured at all times, and law enforcement agents are currently carrying out investigations that are aimed at bringing the culprits behind the cyberattack to justice.
