Jul 29, 2019

Data from 100 million credit applications stolen from Capital One

Joe Uchill

Photo of a Capital One Bank sign — Photo: Johannes Eilsele/AFP/Getty Images

The FBI arrested Washington state resident Paige Thompson Monday morning for the digital theft of data from tens of millions of credit card applications, multiple news sites reported. Capital One confirmed broad aspects of the arrest in a press release.

What was stolen: Data from around 100 million credit card applications from between 2005 and 2019, including 80,000 bank account numbers and 140,000 Social Security numbers. 1 million Canadian Social Insurance Numbers were also stolen.

Background: Capital One said it discovered the data breach on July 19 in the process of patching a security glitch reported to the company.

The FBI quickly arrested Thompson, who reportedly bragged about the heist online.

Threat level: Capital One's statement said the company does not believe information from the credit card applications has been released online.

The impact: The breach will cost the financial firm $100 million–$150 million to resolve, per Capital One, including the costs of notifying affected applicants, providing applicants with credit monitoring and other costs.

Editor's note: This story has been corrected to indicate that the breach involved "data from" credit card applications, rather than entire credit card applications.

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Data from 100 million credit applications stolen from Capital One

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