‘Amateur’ Capital One hack stuns security community

A hacker accessed more than 100 million credit card applications with Capital One, the firm said, in one of the biggest data thefts to hit a financial services company. FBI agents arrested Thompson after she boasted about the data theft on the information sharing site GitHub, authorities said. — AFP

WASHINGTON: The massive data breach at Capital One appeared to be an unsophisticated attack from a single hacker, raising questions about the security of the financial system and insider threats to cloud computing.

The motive behind the breach and extent of its impact remained unclear on July 30, a day after FBI agents arrested 33-year-old former web engineer Paige Thompson and charged her with stealing data from more than 100 million credit card applications from the 10th largest US bank.