14 DAY TRIAL // A recent security incident that involves a Massachusetts financial institution called Jeanne D’Arc Credit Union shows that it’s not necessary for hackers to be involved for data leaks to occur.
More precisely, one of their employees that left the company in December 2010, took with her some files that contained private information belonging to their customers, including social security numbers and loan account numbers, reports DataBreaches.
The worrying thing is that the incident would have never been discovered if the woman's latest employer hadn’t noticed the information after she left her new job.
She claims that the information was taken on a USB drive to be utilized in her new job and that the files were never copied to other computing devices.
“We have recovered the thumb drive device that contained the computer files in question. We have obtained a sworn affidavit from our former employee indicating that she made no unauthorized use or further disclosure of the disclosed personal information,” reads a letter sent by the organization to the General Attorney’s Office.
Jeanne D’Arc Credit Union also states that both their former employee and her new employer assured them that the information would not be disclosed to other parties, and that they implemented new systems to prevent such incident from occurring in the future.
All the individuals have been notified on the breach and they were advised on how to monitor their bank accounts, but they were not told what exactly led to the situation.
In related news, hacktivist collectives that run Operation Robin Hood are working to prove that banks and some credit unions are experiencing major difficulties in securing their systems against cyberattacks. Unfortunately, this latest situation only comes to prove that there’s a lot of work to be done in order to get to the point where their systems are completely protected and their customers are safe.