Morgan Stanley fires employee accused of posting stolen customer data online

Morgan Stanley has fired an employee who it says stole data on 350,000 clients, posting some of it online.

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Morgan Stanley fires employee accused of posting stolen customer data online

Editorial

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The bank says that "partial account information" - not including passwords or social security numbers - on up to 10% of its wealth management clients was taken by the staffer.

Account names and numbers for around 900 clients was briefly posted on the Internet, but was "promptly removed" once discovered.

There is no evidence of losses related to the theft but affected customers are being contacted and law enforcement and regulatory authorities have been notified.

Says a statement: "Morgan Stanley takes extremely seriously its responsibility to safeguard client data, and is working with the appropriate authorities to conduct and conclude a thorough investigation of this incident."

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Comments: (3)

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

Firing seems to be a very light penalty for a crime of this magnitude.

A Finextra member 

What else they can do?

Can they file a law suit against the employee?

Ketharaman Swaminathan

Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions

If they want to, they can do a lot of things viz. file a police complaint, let the FBI loose, arrest, and so on. Going by what I read in Michael Lewis's latest book, Flash Boys, another leading investment bank did all this and more in a somewhat similar situation - just that, in their case, the employee had allegedly stolen code rather than data.

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