US bank regulator discloses massive data breach

The cybersecurity breach at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) was detected in September while the agency was undertaking a retrospective two-year review of employees downloading information in an effort to help minimize cyber threats.

The breach flagged to Congress and three other government agencies including the Department of Homeland Security, occurred in November 2015 when a former employee downloaded a large number of files onto two thumb drives before retiring from the agency. The OCC said data on the thumb drives were encrypted and there is no evidence that data taken by the employee were ‘disclosed’ or ‘misused.’

The OCC incident follows a string of recent cybersecurity breaches at another bank regulator, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. House lawmakers have spent part of 2016 investigating what they have called “significant shortfalls” in the FDIC’s cybersecurity policies, which has left private information and regulatory data susceptible to theft.