Irish Revolut users urged to check accounts after massive data breach to scammers
If you are one of the millions of people in Ireland who uses the cash and banking app Revolut – you should check on your account as the company is facing a worldwide data breach.
It’s been disclosed that Revolut mistakenly gave data to scammers, handing sensitive information to fraudsters who claimed they were from a ‘government agency’ that needed to make regulatory checks.
The highly sensitive data exposed in the leak included:
customers’ identity and contact details.
- dates of birth,
- postal and email addresses
- phone numbers,
- copies of their identity documents including passports and driving licences.
- IBANS and other account details
The online digital and tech news site TechCrunch first reported the breach over the weekend – but the full extent of the breach is only now emerging. It appears that the scammers have focused on accounts held by ‘high net worth inviduals’ but with the British-owned company refusing to give more details, the full info remains unknown.
Revolut has so far declined to go into
Revolut has so far declined to go into specifics or confirm whether it has informed the Irish Central Bank about the data breach.
Revolut has only said a “limited number” of individuals were impacted by the breach and they have contacted these customers directly.
“Revolut recently identified a sophisticated external impersonation scam where an unauthorised third party utilised a legitimate government agency domain email to submit fraudulent requests for information,” Revolut said.
Upon detection, we immediately blocked the address
“Upon detection, we immediately blocked the address and alerted the relevant government agency as well as enforcement agencies, data protection, and financial regulators.”
The scammers are believed to have used a legitimate government email domain seeking data from Revolut.
The financial technology firm said it blocked the address after detecting the scheme and alerted the “relevant government agency,” along with law enforcement and financial regulators.
“Upon detection, we immediately blocked the address and alerted the relevant government agency as well as enforcement agencies, data protection, and financial regulators. Revolut systems and customer funds are unaffected. We have contacted the limited number of impacted individuals directly to inform them and provide support.”
Revolut claims to have 3.5m users in Ireland. London-based Revolut has more than 80 million customers around the world and is operating as a regulated bank in 30 countries.
