Confidential data belonging to thousands of customers of ABN Amro Mortgage in the US have been inadvertently leaked onto a person-to-person file sharing network by a former employee of the firm, according to press reports.Spreadsheets containing the names, social security numbers and mortgage information for over 5000 customers of Citigroup's ABN Amro Mortgage unit have been found on the BearShare file-sharing network.
The files were traced to a computer, which had the BearShare software installed, reportedly owned by a former ABN Amro employee in Florida.
According to a Wall Street Journal report - which states that the files were accessed on the Lime Wire network - the data breach is thought to have occurred after the business analyst signed up to use a P2P service last year. By doing so, she appears to have inadvertently exposed many documents from her computer.
Both BearShare and LimeWire are designed to distribute and find songs, movies and other files over the Gnutella file-sharing network.
The breached data was taken offline last week, but it isn't clear how long the information was online or how far it has spread, says the WSJ report.
Citigroup spokesman, Michael Hanretta, told reporters that the bank is investigating the incident.
Ealier this month a Seattle man appeared in court accused of using file-sharing programs to commit identity theft.
Gregory Thomas Kopiloff allegedly used P2P file sharing systems to access other people's computers for financial information. He is accused of using this data to fraudulently acquire credit cards to fund an online shopping spree.
Kopiloff is thought to have scammed at least 83 people. He pleaded not guilty to charges of mail fraud, accessing a protected computer and two counts of aggravated identity theft.
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