US Bank Regulator Notifies Congress of Major Data Security Breach (metro.us)

A U.S. banking regulator says an employee was found to have downloaded a large number of files onto thumb drives a week before he retired. When the former employee was contacted, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said he "was unable to locate or return the thumb drives to the agency." The reassuring news is that the information appears to not have been disclosed to the public or misused in any way, according to the OCC. Metro.us reports: Before he retired in November 2015, the former employee downloaded a large number of files onto two removable thumb drives though the incident was only detected last month during a routine security review, the OCC said in a statement. The stolen data was encrypted, the agency said. The Office of the Comptroller, along with the Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, is one of the nation's three most influential bank regulators that is tasked with protecting consumers and financial markets. The OCC has deemed the breach a "major incident" because the devices containing the information are not recoverable and more than 10,000 records were removed, the agency said. The official, who was not authorized to discuss the case, noted that a large batch of unclassified personnel records were among the cache.

Comments

Old people

[Anonymous Coward]

Old people don't seem to get how important personal information is. Back when I was in school, this old fart used our SSNs and DOBs for our userid and pw for a job website - an external company. He retired the following year. The person who took over was beside herself over her predecessors stupidity.

These old people don't realize that this information goes all around the World and we don't know who has access.

Bank of America's databases of customer data is all handled in India. So are the credit bureaus. I had a problem with my report for Equifax and they sent me to an Indian call center that had ALL my information.

I am just waiting for the day that the black helicopters land and shit my ass off because some terrorist used my identity in Derkaderkastan.

Just like in the movies

[ls671]

Great!

Just like in the movies, thumb drives are enabled and auto-magically work in all banking hardware/workstations I assume...

At least, they seem to have a non real-time system that reports "incidents" months later.

I have seen places where, non only can't you access anything from a thumb drive, but security guards auto-magically appear at your desk if you try to plug one in.