HSBC is the latest to company to reveal that it sensitive customer information was breached by attackers. The incidents occurred between October 4th and October 14th with the attackers gaining access to customer account details, statement histories and other customer data. Somewhat thankfully less than 1% of HSBC’s 1.4 million United States customers were affected by the breach. HSBC has stated it has started to inform affected customers of the breach.
I’ll continue to advocate that until the penalties for data breaches are increased they will continue to happen at an alarming rate. Companies are simply not putting enough resources into cybersecurity to prevent these breaches from happening at an ever increasing pace. The damage that can be done to an individual when their private data is stolen and used for identity theft purposes cannot be understated. In this case it’s particularly concerning that statement history was also accessed. It’s also disappointing that this data was breach more than a month ago in some cases and we are only hearing about it now. How long has HSBC known about this breach and left it unreported?
Hat tip to Jonathan W
