2023 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau data breach

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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) data breach occurred in March 2023 at the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. [1] [2]

Contents

Data breach

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) experienced a significant security breach when a former employee transferred confidential information on approximately 256,000 consumers and forty-five financial institutions to their personal email account. [3] [4] The unauthorized transfer involved data from seven firms, though the majority of the consumer information came from one institution. [3] The data was sent over fourteen emails and it contained personally identifiable information (PII) of consumers. [5] The employee also sent two spreadsheets with names and transaction-specific account numbers for about 256,000 consumer accounts at a single institution. [5] Neither the firms nor the employee have been publicly identified. [3]

The CFPB first became aware of abuse on 14 February 2023. [1] [4] They informed U.S. lawmakers of the incident on March 21, but it was not made public until April 24th. [3] [4] [6] Shortly following the data breach, Senator Cruz and Rep Donalds authored a bill seeking to eliminate the CFPB. [7]

Aftermath

In response to the 2023 data breach, the Southwest Public Policy Institute (SPPI) established the Bureau to Protect Financial Consumers (BPFCCFPB) to advocate for better oversight and protection of consumer data. [8] The Institute claims this initiative reflects broader concerns about data security and management practices within governmental consumer protection agencies.

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References

  1. 1 2 Berry, Kate; Williams, Claire (April 20, 2023). "CFPB data breach sends shock waves through the financial industry". American Banker .
  2. Vittorio, Andrea; Weinberger, Evan; Witley, Skye (April 20, 2023). "CFPB Consumer Records Breach Draws Lawmakers' Probe (1)". Bloomberg Law .
  3. 1 2 3 4 Ackerman, Andrew. "WSJ News Exclusive | CFPB Says Staffer Sent 250,000 Consumers' Data to Personal Account". Wall Street Journal .
  4. 1 2 3 O'Donnell, Katy. "CFPB says employee breached data of 250,000 consumers in 'major incident'". Politico .
  5. 1 2 Hur, Krystal (April 20, 2023). "CFPB says employee sent confidential data of 256,000 consumers to personal email". CNN .
  6. Berry, Kate (25 April 2023). "CFPB still has not notified consumers about data breach". American Banker.
  7. Catenacci, Thomas (27 April 2023). "Ted Cruz, Byron Donalds take action to eliminate federal agency". Fox News.
  8. Revell, Eric (2023-10-26). "Think tank launches campaign to protect consumers from CFPB after agency data breach". FOXBusiness. Retrieved 2024-04-18.