Capital One data breach exposes data of 100 million Americans and 6 million Canadians

A massive data breach at Capital One exposed the personal data of 100 Americans and 6 Million Canadaians after a former Amazon employee stole credit card application data, including about 80,000 bank account numbers and 140,000 Social Security numbers.

Federal authorities arrested a Seattle-area woman, Paige A. Thompson, on last week over the hack. They said Thompson, who had previously worked for Amazon Web Services, stole the data from the bank’s credit card applications in March, according to Bloomberg. Amazon handles Capital One’s cloud database.

Thompson was charged with computer fraud and abuse, which the Justice Department said carries a maximum punishment of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. She “was ordered detained pending a hearing on August 1” after the FBI searched her apartment and found evidence linking her to the Capital One data breach.

Small businesses and individuals were victims in the Capital One data breach with information disclosed including name, address, date of birth, email address, credit scores, credit limits, payment history, and balances. Capital One reports that no credit card information was compromised. They also say 99 percent of Social Security numbers (Social Insurance numbers for Canadians) were not exposed, although 1 percent of 106 million is still 1.06 million affected consumers between the U.S. and Canada.

Reference:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/29/business/capital-one-data-breach/index.html