Fintech CEO: Lawsuit Against Intuit, after Trezor Crypto Exploit, Could Offer Shake-Up

This weekend, a Bloomberg article covered a lawsuit filed against Intuit in federal court in San Jose. At issue, the complainant says that the company failed to secure its email marketing service when hackers utilized a phishing attack on clients of the cryptocurrency wallet firm, Trezor, after penetrating Mailchimp’s servers.

“The attackers were crafty, utilizing Trezor’s mailing list to falsely inform customers that their accounts had been compromised, then eliciting the passwords and recovery codes necessary to clean out their wallets. The better the security that exchanges and other companies in the digital space employ, the more cunning that hackers become. Clearly, that played out in this situation,” said Richard Gardner, CEO of Modulus, a US-based developer of ultra-high-performance trading and surveillance technology that powers global equities, derivatives, and digital asset exchanges.

Alan Levinson, the complainant, is suing Intuit and its subsidiary, accusing the company of “failing to take adequate and reasonable measures to ensure that its data systems were protected.”

“Interestingly enough, the suit does not name Trezor. The outcome of this case could very well shape how service providers view the need for cybersecurity,” said Gardner. “Obviously, with the war in Ukraine still raging on, there is a heightened concern for cybercrime. That heightened awareness is a step in the right direction, but it is a long time coming. Corporations need to take its cyber-footprint more seriously, and, oftentimes, the only way that happens is after a large loss.”

Modulus is known throughout the financial technology segment as a leader in the development of ultra-high frequency trading systems and blockchain technologies. Modulus has provided its exchange solution to some of the industry’s most profitable digital asset exchanges, including a well-known multi-billion-dollar cryptocurrency exchange. Over the past twenty years, the company has built technology for the world’s most notable institutions, with a client list which includes NASA, NASDAQ, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Barclays, Siemens, Shell, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Cornell University, and the University of Chicago.

“Digital assets are going to be in the crosshairs — whether we’re talking about exchanges, wallet providers, or non-core crypto products — because there’s a tremendous amount of value in the space. High value industries are always going to be major targets. Where there are large stores of assets, bad actors will follow,” said Gardner.