Known as the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock unintentionally released financial information on its website. The information that was leaked belonged to financial adviser clients and included email addresses and names of those that bought BlackRock’s exchange-traded funds. It is unclear the amount of time the data was able to be viewed, but the links date back to early December of 2018. The information was spread from three spreadsheets. One of them contained over 12,0000 names of advisers and their sales reps. An investigation by BlackRock has begun and statement by a representative said, “We are conducting a full review of the matter. The inadvertent and temporary posting of the information relates to two distribution partners serving independent advisers and does not include any of their underlying client information.”
Analyst Notes
At this time, it is not known who accessed the information and what was done with it. Until the investigation is completed and more information is released, users should be mindful of spam and attempted phishing.
