Cash App Fesses Up To Embarrassing Data Breach That Impacts Over 8 Million Customers
If you use Cash App, some of your personal details may have been exposed. In a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Cash App developer Block (formerly Square) revealed it suffered a data breach last December in which a former employee downloaded financial reports for millions of US customers.
"The information in the reports included full name and brokerage account number (this is the unique identification number associated with a customer’s stock activity on Cash App Investing), and for some customers also included brokerage portfolio value, brokerage portfolio holdings and/or stock trading activity for one trading day," Block states in the filing.
Block says the data breach impacts around 8.2 million Cash App Investing users, and is in the process of notifying those affected. According to Block, the reports did not contain usernames, passwords, social security numbers, dates of birth, payment card information, addresses, bank account information, or other personally identifiable information.
It's not clear if the former employee who downloaded the reports had been fired or laid off, or quit on their own terms. However, Block does makes clear the culprit was no longer authorized to view and download the reports, but did so anyway.
"While this employee had regular access to these reports as part of their past job responsibilities, in this instance these reports were accessed without permission after their employment ended," Block states.
Data breaches happen all the time in the tech world (they hit an all-time high in 2021), but they're especially embarrassing when an employee (current or former) is responsible. It's also a bad look that it took Block several months to discover the illicit download.
Block states in its SEC filing that it has launched an investigation into the breach. Based on its preliminary findings, it does not expect the incident to have a material impact on its business operations or finances.
