BlackRock inadvertently exposes confidential information of thousands of financial adviser clients

• The leaked data was spread across three spreadsheets and included names and email addresses of advisers who bought BlackRock’s exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
• The links were dated back to December 5, 2018.

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has unknowingly posted sensitive information belonging to thousands of financial adviser clients on its website. The leaked data was spread across three spreadsheets and included names and email addresses of advisers who bought BlackRock’s exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

The links were dated back to December 5, 2018. It is still unknown as for how long the leaked data was left open for access to the public.

One of the spreadsheets contains more than 12,000 entries of advisers and their sales representatives at BlackRock. In another spreadsheet, the advisers were categorized in a variety of ways such as ‘dabblers’ and ‘power users’. It also had a column that showed their ‘Club Level’ including the ‘Patriots Club’ and ‘Directors Club’.

The firm has started investigating the matter.

“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,” spokesperson Brian Beades said in a statement, Business Times reported.

Experts claim that firms that store users’ and clients’ data should focus on enhancing the security of their infrastructures. This helps the firm in protecting confidential and sensitive data from attackers.