An insider revealed that the number of Robinhood accounts breached by hackers is feared to be close to 2,000.

Following last week's report of Robinhood being hacked, a source familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that an estimated nearly 2,000 Robinhood accounts were compromised.

Robinhood Hacked

According to earlier reports, five customers revealed to Bloomberg that their stocks and cryptocurrency holdings on the Robinhood platform were liquidated by hackers. Despite sending multiple emails to the officials seeking help during the withdrawal process by the hackers, there was no response from the company, leaving the victims watching their assets disappear from their accounts. Recent insider sources further disclosed to Bloomberg that the number of users hacked amounted to as many as 2,000, significantly more than the 5 reported last week.

Today, Robinhood customer service on Twitter specifically reminded users to enhance their account security management and advised them to enable two-factor authentication for their accounts.

Cybersecurity awareness is key to ensuring your safety and security 🔐

Let’s go over the best ways to help protect your Robinhood account.

— Robinhood Help (@AskRobinhood) October 15, 2020

Hackers from External Emails?

Robinhood has not disclosed many details regarding this incident, only stating that a "small number" of users (Robinhood has about 13 million total users) have become targets of cybercriminals. Furthermore, the hackers did not exploit any internal security vulnerabilities of the platform but gained access through users' personal email accounts (the ones associated with their Robinhood accounts). Some victims acknowledge this claim, while others believe it does not align with the facts provided by the company.

Several victims told Bloomberg that they did not find any signs of criminals invading their email accounts. Some victims even claimed that their accounts had two-factor authentication enabled, yet woke up one day to find all their stock holdings sold off. One victim expressed:

"It feels like waking up at 4 am to find your house on fire."

Poor Customer Service Experience Sparks Outrage

Despite the asset theft, most disgruntled users mainly complain about Robinhood's handling process and lack of communication channels. Even though Robinhood stated earlier this year that they have more than doubled their customer service team, the company's response time is slow, with no dedicated customer service line to address emergencies. A victim told Bloomberg:

"If I can get my money back, I would choose to put it elsewhere, somewhere I can talk to a person. It's absurd that a platform dealing with people's livelihoods and assets shamelessly makes people wait for weeks to know the progress of issue resolutions."