A major money transfer fintech, Wise, recently admitted that some of its users may have been affected by a recent hack targeting Evolve Bank & Trust.

Evolve Bank Admits To Being Hacked, Wise Says Some Customers Were Affected

Evolve Bank unveiled last week that it has been hacked after LockBit, a ransomware gang associated with Russia, dumped stolen customer information belonging to the lender on the dark web.

The bank responded by admitting the hack, but now, Wise also emerged, saying that some of its own customers may have been affected. While Wise itself was not hacked, the fintech worked with Evolve for three years, between 2020 and 2023, to provide USD account details.

In other words, the bank had a number of names, addresses, contact details, dates of birth, EINs, and SSNs of many US customers. In addition, there was also another identity document number for non-US users.

Who Else Was Affected?

While Wise admitted that its users may have been affected by the hack, it also said that it was not informed regarding the nature of the data that was collected by the hackers. However, it assured its customers that it has launched its own investigation and it will send an email to all customers believed to be involved, notifying them of the situation directly.

As for Evolve, the bank works with a variety of fintech firms apart from Wise, including Mercury, Affirm, Earnin, Melio, and Marqueta. All of these companies have since started their own investigations, wanting to discover if their own customers were also affected by the hack.

Commenting on the situation, Affirm said: “Because [Affirm] shares the personal information of Affirm Card users with Evolve to facilitate the issuance and servicing of Affirm Cards, [Affirm] believes that the personal information of Affirm Card users was compromised as part of Evolve’s cybersecurity incident.”

It added, “However, the company’s information systems were not compromised, nor was the ability for Affirm Card holders to continue using their Affirm Card.”

The Ransomware Attack Encrypted The Bank’s Data

The incident surrounding Evolve was revealed earlier this week on Monday. The bank was able to confirm that the LockBit ransomware gang was behind the attack, noting that, in addition to stealing and later publishing the data, the hackers also deployed file-encrypting ransomware on Evolve’s systems.

Fortunately, the bank said that it had backups in place, so data loss would not be an issue and it will have a very limited impact on its operations.