U.S. banking giant, JPMorgan Chase & Co., revealed that it has suffered a massive cybersecurity breach, affecting 76 million household accounts and seven million small businesses.
In a regulatory filing, the bank revealed that the contact information, including names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses, and the bank’s internal information on these users has been compromised. However, it maintains that there’s no indication that more sensitive personal information, such as account numbers, passwords, user IDs, birth dates, or Social Security numbers was compromised in the attack.
Moreover, the bank reports that, so far, it has not seen any unusual customer fraud related to the breach. JPMorgan says that it “continues to vigilantly monitor the situation and is continuing to investigate the matter”; and, it notes that it’s cooperating with the government’s investigations, too.
Cybersecurity has emerged as a top issue for the U.S. financial industry in recent months. Industry trade association, the Financial Services Roundtable (FSR), has called for strong cybersecurity threat information sharing laws. And, throughout the month, the FSR plans to raise awareness about these issues, as it touts October as “cybersecurity awareness month”.
“Cyberattacks are one of the most concerning threats facing both our nation’s business sectors, the economy and taxpayers,” said Paul Smocer, president of BITS, the FSR’s technology division. “This issue is no longer relegated to an IT team— it’s a CEO issue that the financial industry takes seriously. It’s critical we continue to engage policymakers in Washington and consumers at home on how we can all better protect ourselves from common cyber enemies.”