Technology and Security: Capital One Data Breach

In July 2019, the U.S. financial services company Capital One disclosed a major data breach that compromised the personal information of over 100 million individuals in the United States and 6 million in Canada. The exposed data included names, addresses, dates of birth, and a substantial number of Social Security and bank account numbers. A hacker exploited a misconfigured firewall in the company's cloud infrastructure to access the data.

This incident highlighted the persistent and complex security challenges that organizations face during cloud migration. It served as a stark reminder of the critical data protection responsibilities borne by financial institutions in the digital economy and prompted widespread reinforcement of cloud security protocols across the industry. The perpetrator was subsequently arrested and charged, while Capital One faced significant regulatory fines and class-action lawsuits as a result of the breach.