Huge Data Theft From Major US Banks: Over 1 Million Accounts Stolen (moved from ATSNN), page 1

Data theft has happened before, but not on such massive scale as in this instance. The security breach was due to unscrupulous employees, who resold the stolen data to a crook in New Jersey.

money.cnn.com
Bank of America Corp. and Wachovia Corp. are among the big banks notifying more than 670,000 customers that account information was stolen in what may the biggest security breach to hit the banking industry.

Account information on the customers was illegally sold by bank employees to a man identified as Orazio Lembo, whom police said was doing business by illegally posing as a collection agency.

When police in Hackensack, N.J., first announced arrests in the case on April 28, they estimated that more than 500,000 people were affected. That number was raised to 676,000 Friday. Because some people have more than one account, Hackensack Police Chief Charles "Ken" Zisa says the number of accounts breached may top 1 million.

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

The only consolation, in my opinion, is that it was not a hackers job. That would have been scarier. It's a pity though that a few bad apples spoiled the whole bunch of good work of dedicated employees at the affected banks.

[edit on 23-5-2005 by Aelita]