{"id":177342,"date":"2026-01-12T18:58:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T23:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/12\/social-engineering-attack-enabled-data-breach\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T05:55:33","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T10:55:33","slug":"social-engineering-attack-enabled-data-breach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/12\/social-engineering-attack-enabled-data-breach\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Engineering Attack Enabled Data Breach"},"content":{"rendered":"

Social Engineering Attack Enabled Data Breach<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/cybersecurity\/2026\/betterment-says-social-engineering-attack-enabled-data-breach-and-unauthorized-messages\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-01-12 18:58:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.pymnts.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Author: <\/a><\/p>\n

Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points. Investing and savings app Betterment\u00a0said Monday (Jan. 12) that a social engineering attack led to its customers receiving an unauthorized message promoting a crypto-related promotion and to an unauthorized individual gaining access to customer information.<\/p>\n

Betterment had told its customers Friday (Jan. 9), in the first security update about the incident, that they may have received a message about the promotion earlier in the day and that the message was not real and should be disregarded.
\nThe company said the unauthorized message was sent via a third-party system it uses for customer communications.
\nIn a Saturday (Jan. 10) update, Betterment said an unauthorized individual gained access to some of the company\u2019s systems and was thereby able to claim to represent Betterment while sending the fraudulent promotion.
\nThe company said that the unauthorized access had been removed, there\u00a0was no sign that the individual gained access to Betterment customer accounts, and the security of those accounts was not compromised if customers clicked on the notification offer.
\nIn its Monday update sharing that the incident was enabled by a social engineering attack, Betterment said this means \u201cthe individual used identity impersonation and deception to gain access, rather than compromising our technical infrastructure.\u201dAdvertisement: Scroll to Continue <\/p>\n

The company said that the unauthorized access involved third-party platforms\u00a0it uses to support its marketing and operations, that it launched an ongoing investigation, and that a leading cybersecurity firm will help with that investigation.
\nIt added that while no customer accounts were accessed and no log-in credentials were compromised, it believes the unauthorized individual accessed customer information such as names, email addresses, physical addresses, phone numbers\u00a0and birthdates.
\nBetterment said that it will provide more details when it is able and that customers should be cautious of unexpected communications and should remember that Betterment will never ask them to share their password or sensitive personal information.
\nThe company added that it is \u201creviewing and strengthening our controls and training to further protect against social engineering attempts.\u201d
\nThe PYMNTS Intelligence report \u201cVendors and Vulnerabilities: The Cyberattack Squeeze on Mid-Market Firms\u201c found that social engineering attacks are a growing problem for middle-market companies.
\nAnother PYMNTS Intelligence report, \u201cThe State of Fraud and Financial Crime in the U.S. 2024: What FIs Need to Know,\u201d found that social engineering fraud had increased 56% in the previous year.
\nThe FBI\u2019s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) cautioned the public in November that cybercriminals are impersonating financial institutions to steal money or information from individuals, businesses\u00a0and organizations.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Social Engineering Attack Enabled Data Breach https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/cybersecurity\/2026\/betterment-says-social-engineering-attack-enabled-data-breach-and-unauthorized-messages\/ Publish Date: 2026-01-12 18:58:00 Source Domain: www.pymnts.com Author:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":177343,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Betterment-cybersecurity-data-breach.jpeg?w=457","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[30,24],"class_list":["post-177342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-breach","tag-cybersecurity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177342"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177342"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":177344,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177342\/revisions\/177344"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}