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The leak of client records at Morgan Stanley illustrates the danger posed when just one employee has unauthorized or unsecured access to sensitive information, as well as the ongoing threat to financial institutions from insider theft.
January 7 -
Here's one idea for minimizing the damage from major data breaches: let consumers, not banks or retailers, manage their personal information.
December 29
A former JPMorgan Chase employee was arrested by the FBI on charges of stealing customer data and trying to sell it to an undercover informant for tens of thousands of dollars.
Peter Persaud got unauthorized access to customer accounts and later sold data, including PINs and Social Security numbers and birth dates, as well as debit and bank account security codes, to an informant, said Peter Donald, a Federal Bureau of Investigation in New York.
Even after being suspended by JPMorgan Chase in February, Persaud complained about not having access to the confidential banking data he was trying to sell, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Brooklyn, New York.
I cant get nothing while Im suspended. Cause I dont have access to that, Persaud told an undercover agent in a conversation recorded by the FBIs Financial Cyber Crimes Task Force.
The informant agreed to wear a wire to record conversations and calls with Persaud, according to the U.S. The undercover agent, who was posing as the person who was buying the data from the informant, didnt withdraw any money from victims accounts while working with investigators, according to a criminal complaint.
During a meeting in December, the informant paid Persaud $2,500 in exchange for a bank customers confidential personal data for an account that had a balance of about $19,000, with a $3,000 daily withdrawal limit, prosecutors said.
Persaud told the informant he expected to be paid $7,500 more after the informant emptied the account, according to court papers.
While the informant didnt withdraw any money while working with the FBI, Persaud continued to meet with the informant for several months and sought to use other bank employees to evade detection by JPMorgan Chase superiors.
Even after Persaud claimed hed been reinstated at work in March, the U.S. says he attempted to sell account information for four bank accounts that contained about $150,000, the U.S. said.
Trish Wexler, a spokeswoman for New York-based JPMorgan, declined to immediately comment on Persauds arrest.
Persaud, who appeared Tuesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Viktor Pohorelsky in Brooklyn, is charged with one count of scheming to defraud a financial institution.
Wearing a multicolored striped sweater and black track pants, Persaud said he understood the charges against him and said nothing else. He is in U.S. custody. A bail hearing was set for Wednesday.
The case is U.S. v. Persaud, 15-mj-00358, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn).
