WASHINGTON – Capital One said a hacker gained access to more than 100 million Capital One customer accounts and credit card applications earlier this year.
The compromised data includes 140,000 Social Security numbers, 80,000 bank account numbers, in addition to an undisclosed number of people’s names, addresses, and credit histories, according to the bank and the US Department of Justice.
Paige Thompson, 33, was arrested in connection with the breach, the Justice Department said Monday. The department alleges that Thompson “posted on the information sharing site GitHub about her theft of information from the servers storing Capital One data.”
Thompson was able to gain access by exploiting a misconfigured web application firewall, the DOJ said.
Capital One indicated it fixed the vulnerability and said it is “unlikely that the information was used for fraud or disseminated by this individual.” However, the company is still investigating.
The breach affected around 100 million people in the United States and about 6 million people in Canada, according to Capital One.
However, “no credit card account numbers or log-in credentials were compromised and over 99% of Social Security numbers were not compromised,” the company said.
It is not immediately clear if Thompson has an attorney representing her.
