UK bank mistakenly sells customer data on eBay

An employee of a UK data processing firm has come under fire after selling an old computer on eBay. The computer was later discovered to have millions of private financial records on its hard drive

An employee of a UK data processing firm has come under fire after selling an old computer on eBay. The computer was later discovered to have millions of private financial records on its hard drive.

The computer was bought from eBay for $75 by Andrew Chapman, an IT manager from Oxford, who found the info on the hard drive. Details on file included account numbers, phone numbers and security informations such as mother’s maiden name and account holder signatures for customers of American Express, Nat West and the Royal Bank of Scotland.

The computer had previously belonged to data processing company Mail Source and had been mistakenly sold by an employee.

A spokeswoman for Mail Source said the employee who sold the computer had made an “honest mistake” but insisted it had been an “isolated incident”. She said: “The computer was removed from our secure storage facility in Essex and sold on eBay.

“We know which employee took the server and sold it, but we believe it was an honest mistake and it was not intentional to sell it without the server being cleared. This is a very unfortunate incident and we are taking measures to ensure it will never happen again.”

Source: The Australian IT

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