Revolut will cover the cost of customers wanting to change their identity documents after the fintech was tricked into giving hackers the data of hundreds of customers, the company’s CEO for Western Europe said today.
Revolut, Europe’s most valuable startup, said it had sent the customers’ personal data to hackers who had taken control of an Italian government agency email address, in an incident first disclosed last month.
Béatrice Cossa-Dumurgier, Revolut’s CEO for Western Europe, said that the company would not pay ransoms to hackers, when asked if they had paid one. Revolut previously said it had not received a ransom demand.
Cossa-Dumurgier said Revolut had provided assistance for the 680 affected clients. It is understood that 12 Irish customers of these 680 customers worldwide were affected. 55 of them were in France.
“If they ever have to change their ID documents, we’re taking care of the associated costs”, she added, without specifying whether this had happened yet or how much it could cost the company.
Financial institutions are required to send customer data to authorities when asked to do so as part of investigations into potential crimes.
Matteo Piantedosi, Italy’s interior minister, told lawmakers on September 30 that the email address to which Revolut sent customer data came from the Reggio Calabria police’s email system, but was an address that had never been used before.
Revolut could have and should have verified the request by doing minimal due diligence, the minister said.
A spokesperson for Revolut declined to comment on the interior minister’s remarks.
Cossa-Dumurgier said that government agencies are sometimes the “weak link” in the system and that Revolut’s own systems had not been compromised.
