Wise customer data likely compromised in Evolve data breach

Some Wise customer data was likely to have been obtained by the hackers behind the Evolve data breach back in May.

Multiple additional fintech firms may also be affected by the cybersecurity attack, and it’s possible that personal data may be leaked if companies refuse to give in to ransom demands …

Wise launched back in 2011, with the aim of providing low-cost money transfers between countries at far more competitive exchange rates than those offered by banks. High-profile backers included Virgin founder Richard Branson and PayPal co-founder Max Levchin.

The company partnered with Evolve Bank & Trust for several years, with Wise account holder details shared with the bank.

Back in May, Evolve suffered a data breach when a phishing attack saw an employee click on a malicious link. Wise has advised customers that their personal data may have been exposed.

Evolve Bank & Trust is a regulated bank that we worked with from 2020 until 2023 to provide USD account details. They’ve recently been affected by a data breach and some Wise customers’ personal information may have been involved. We’ll be emailing all Wise customers who we think may have been affected by this data breach directly. 

For Evolve Bank & Trust to provide USD account details to Wise customers, they were required to hold identifying information. The information that we shared with Evolve Bank & Trust to provide USD account details included name, address, date of birth, contact details, SSN or EIN for US customers, or another identity document number for non-US customers. Evolve has not yet confirmed to us what data has been impacted. 

TechCrunch notes that multiple financial technology companies have (or had) similar partnerships with Evolve, and that their customer data may also be at risk.

When reached by TechCrunch for comment, asking whether Evolve knows how many partner companies — old and current — and end users have been affected by the breach, and whether Evolve has already contacted all of them, Evolve spokesperson Eric Helvie declined to comment […]

So far, Affirm, EarnIn, Marqeta, Melio and Mercury — all Evolve partners — have acknowledged that they are investigating how the Evolve breach impacted their customers. On Monday, fintech reporter Jason Mikula shared on X a notification that Branch, another Evolve partner, had sent to a customer.

Photo by Patrick Lindenberg on Unsplash