Robinhood on Monday warned customers {that a} hacker talked their well beyond the stock-trading app’s defenses, stealing tens of millions of consumer electronic mail addresses and extra.

The offender known as buyer assist and, pretending to be a certified get together, duped a Robinhood worker into offering entry to the shopper assist laptop system, a hacker method known as “social engineering,” the corporate mentioned in a blog post.

After stealing info from Robinhood, the hacker tried to extort cost from the corporate, which opted to alert police and warn customers in regards to the breach, in accordance with the publish.

“We owe it to our customers to be transparent and act with integrity,” Robinhood chief security officer Caleb Sima said in the post.

“Following a diligent evaluate, placing your entire Robinhood neighborhood on discover of this incident now could be the suitable factor to do.”

The breach took place late on November 3, with the hacker snatching about five million email addresses for Robinhood users, along with the names of about two million other members of the investment service, according to the company.

Robinhood said it also appeared that the hacker got hold of names, birth dates and zip codes associated with 310 users, plus additional account details about some of those people.

“The assault has been contained and we consider that no Social Security numbers, checking account numbers, or debit card numbers have been uncovered and that there was no monetary loss to any clients because of the incident,” Robinhood said in the post.

Hackers could use the stolen information to try to trick Robinhood members with ruses such as “phishing” emails pretending to be the corporate.

Robinhood has been credited with introducing a technology of latest particular person buyers to the inventory market, however the platform can be identified for options that critics say could make it addictive.

Game-like features of Robinhood have additionally raised issues that customers might overlook severe monetary ramifications of investing.