Capital One Breach Exposes Personal Data of 100 Million People
A massive cyberattack on Capital One compromises the sensitive personal information of approximately 100 million individuals in the United States and Canada.
Capital One experiences a massive data breach that exposes the personal information of about 100 million customers in the United States and Canada. The hacker gains access to highly sensitive data, including names, addresses, dates of birth, and credit scores, as well as roughly 140,000 Social Security numbers and 80,000 linked bank account numbers.
Authorities arrest a former Amazon Web Services employee named Paige Thompson in connection with the cyberattack. The suspect allegedly exploits a misconfiguration in a firewall to access the bank's stored data, showcasing the critical risks associated with cloud computing infrastructure and internal threats.
The incident prompts immediate investigations by the FBI and the US Department of Justice, while Capital One faces intense scrutiny from regulators and the public. The bank promises to notify all affected individuals and offers free credit monitoring and identity protection services to help mitigate the potential damage from the unprecedented financial sector hack.