Capital One Hack Compromised Personal Information of More Than 100 Million

Millions of Capital One account holders had their information compromised in a massive data breach the company first identified on July 19, Reuters reported.

The breach occurred between March 12 and July 17, when a hacker gained access to the personal information of more than 100 million Americans and 6 million people in Canada. While the hacker did not obtain credit card account numbers, Capital One said personal information including names and addresses was compromised, as well as about 140,000 Social Security numbers and 80,000 linked bank account numbers. The hacker also reportedly gained access to credit scores and phone numbers.

The hacker was able to obtain that data through a misconfigured web application firewall, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office, who added it is unclear what the suspect’s motive was.

The suspected hacker, a 33-year-old former Seattle software engineer identified as Paige Thompson, has been arrested and made her first appearance in U.S. District Court in Seattle on Monday. Thompson was arrested after a Github user saw information Thompson had posted from the hack on the coding platform and alerted Capital One.

If you want to learn more about the Capital One cyber incident, please visit https://t.co/8jTV9E6Lit

— Capital One (@CapitalOne) July 30, 2019

According to a complaint filed in the District Court for the Western District of Washington at Seattle, law enforcement officials were able to track Thompson down thanks to the fact that her full name was included as part of the digital address of the page she posted on Github.

The massive data breach, which Capital One said will cost between $100 million and $150 million, follows last week’s announcement that credit-reporting company Equifax will pay up to $700 million to settle claims from a 2017 data breach in which around 147 million people had information, including Social Security numbers and driver’s license data, compromised.

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