Nithin Kamath, the founder and CEO of the online broking firm Zerodha, said the platform would soon introduce a new safety tool to safeguard traders. This comes amidst reports of platforms’ demat accounts getting hacked.
The CEO said they want to address the root cause of most hacking attempts. “We are soon launching a tool that disallows trades in illiquid options far away from the theoretical price plus a Kill Switch option to block orders in all penny stocks similar to F&O,” Kamath said in a Twitter thread.
He said since all e-mail hacking cases happen to use Rediffmail, it must have some vulnerability being exploited. Hence, Zerodha blocked Rediffmail IDs on trading accounts a while ago and has constantly been notifying users. It also doesn’t send password resets to Rediffmail IDs.
Hacking incidents at Zerodha
Addressing that there has been “some noise” about the hacking incidents at Zerodha, Kamath shared the data regarding fraud complaints. He said that out of 65 lakh customers who traded on Zerodha last year, the platform got 100 complaints of fraud; of these, in 80 complaints, log-in details were shared willingly, and in 20 complaints e-mail was hacked.
“As a percentage of such cases or even normal complaints to overall active customers, we are among the lowest in the broking industry,” he said. This isn’t just about us; regardless of the broker, one needs to be careful not to share login details and use a secure e-mail, Kamath added.