Lawmakers probe large data breaches at US bank insurance agency

The personal banking information of about 160,000 U.S. residents walked out the door of the federal government’s bank insurance agency on removable media of employees departing in recent months.

During the last seven months, seven departing employees at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) have left with personal banking information on thumb drives and other removable media, agency officials told a congressional subcommittee Thursday.

The FDIC, which provides deposit insurance to U.S. bank accounts, considered the data breaches as “inadvertent” copying of personal banking information that happened when departing employees were copying personal information to removable media, Lawrence Gross Jr., the FDIC’s CIO, told the House of Representatives Science, Space, and Technology Committee’s oversight subcommittee.

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