Names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of the holders of about 83 million households and small business accounts were exposed when computer systems at JPMorgan Chase and Co were recently compromised by hackers, making it one of the biggest data breaches in history.
The bank revealed the scope of the breach on Thursday, saying that there was no evidence that account numbers, passwords, user IDs, birth dates or Social Security numbers had been stolen.
It added that it has not seen “unusual customer fraud” related to the attack which exposed contact information for 76 million households and 7 million small businesses.
The people affected are mostly account holders, but may also include former account holders and others who entered their contact information at the bank’s online and mobile sites, according to a bank spokeswoman.
Security experts outside of the bank warned that the breach could result in an increase in crime as scammers will likely attempt to use the stolen information to engage in various types of fraud.
The bank’s clients should be on heightened alert for fraud, said Mark Rasch, a former USfederal cybercrimes prosecutor.
“All of this data is useful to hackers and identity thieves,” he said. “The kind of information that was stolen is not sensitive itself, but is frequently used to validate people’s identities.”
Cybersecurity firm Adallom vice president, Tal Klein, said that the breach could undermine confidence in the security of banks and other companies that people assume are well protected from hackers.
“Criminals could literally take on the identities of these 83 million businesses and people. That’s the biggest concern,” he said.
“Until now the assumption has been that the companies that get breached are the ones that have poor security practices, but we know that JPMorgan had a good security program and that they invest heavily in this area,” he added.
“So what we are waking up to is that the fundamental nature of security is broken,” he said.
Still, JPMorgan advised clients on its Web site that it does not believe they need to change their passwords or account information.
Company spokeswoman Patricia Wexler said that the bank is not offering credit monitoring to its customers because no financial information, account data or personally identifiable information was compromised.
At the end of August, JPMorgan said that it was working with US law enforcement authorities to investigate a possible cyber attack.
As with home break-ins, it can take victims of data attacks months to discover what is missing.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in