In one of the biggest data breaches ever, a hacker gained access to more than 100 million Capital One customers' accounts and credit card applications earlier this year.
Paige Thompson is accused of breaking into a Capital One server and gaining access to 140,000 Social Security numbers, 1 million Canadian Social Insurance numbers and 80,000 bank account numbers, in addition to an undisclosed number of people's names, addresses, credit scores, credit limits, balances, and other information, according to the bank and the US Department of Justice.
A criminal complaint says Thompson tried to share the information with others online. The 33-year-old, who lives in Seattle, had previously worked as a tech company software engineer for Amazon (AMZN) Web Services, the cloud hosting company that Capital One was using, the Justice Department said. She was able to gain access by exploiting a misconfigured web application firewall, according to a court filing.
Thompson was arrested Monday in connection with the breach, the Justice Department said. Thompson's attorney could not be immediately reached for comment.
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