New HR training... The FBI is prosecuting a former Amazon employee for stealing data from Amazon's servers (she's under arrest). The data belonged to Capital One, which announced the bad news Monday, sending shares down 3%. It's a win for the FBI — we don't often see hackers get ID'd (much less arrested). Now they just need to find the getaway USB stick.
What's in your wallet?... The hacker knows. Capital One is the #5 provider of credit cards in the US, offering up bank accounts too to people and businesses — so the victims are widespread.
- Who's affected: Anyone/anything that applied for credit cards between 2005 and 2019.
- How they're affected: Mailing address, DOB, email, phone numbers, and self-reported income are all out there. For a smaller number (~140K) they got SSNs, too. The bank said no passwords or credit card numbers were taken.
- What to do if you're affected: Capital One believes "it is unlikely that the information was used for fraud or disseminated". More info here.
Is this a cloud story? An Amazon story?... In Seattle, they're charging the alleged hacker for breaking into the physical servers humming along with Capital One's data (we're picturing Mission:Impossible vibes). It's not reassuring that a disgruntled employee at the top cloud company can steal customer files. That's because virtually all big companies rent server space from Amazon, Google, Microsoft, or other cloud providers.