Capital One Breach Sets Record

Capital One bank announced that a criminal hacker stole the personal information of 106 million people who had applied for credit, including credit scores, social security numbers, and bank account numbers. By some measures, it is the largest data breach of a US bank in history. The FBI arrested the alleged hacker and filed a complaint in federal court. Capital One joins a long list of companies that have had data breaches in recent years. In testimony before the Senate and the House several years ago, EPIC warned Congress that US financial institutions were not doing to safeguard consumer data. EPIC has recently renewed calls for the creation of a US Data Protection Agency.