Insiders blamed for data breach at Fifth Third Bank – Business – Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Fifth Third operates the sixth-largest bank in the Sarasota-Manatee region.
Fifth Third Bank is warning customers about a data breach that looks like an inside job.
Fifth Third, the sixth-largest bank by deposits in the Sarasota-Manatee region, confirmed last week that some of its employees apparently swiped customer information.
The nation’s 16th-largest bank said it fired the workers it believed to involved.
“The information was stolen by a small number of employees who provided it to people outside of the bank,” Fifth Third spokesperson Laura Trujillo said. “According to the authorities, and based on our own internal investigation, we have terminated the employees involved in any wrongdoing.”
The Cincinnati-based bank, noting this is still an active investigation, did not specify the number of employees involved, the number of customers impacted, or whether any of them are in Florida.
“We will notify the limited number of customers who may be impacted,” Trujillo said. “We will provide identity theft monitoring to impacted consumers at no cost.
“Fifth Third is cooperating fully with authorities in the investigation of this matter and we look forward to seeing justice served. Incidents like this are rare. Nonetheless, we are reviewing our current preventative measures to determine how we might further increase their effectiveness,” she said.
News reports indicate the theft started in 2018. The former employees passed on such stolen information as Social Security numbers, addresses and account numbers.
Such data thefts are becoming increasingly common.
Late last year the convenience store chain Wawa acknowledged that a nine-month-long breach of its payment card processing systems may have impacted customers at many of its 850 stores.
Fraud experts later said a batch of card data stolen from Wawa customers was offered for sale at a popular underground crime shop, which claimed to have 30 million records to sell.
Truist name fight goes on
A North Carolina credit union isn’t giving up its battle against the new name adopted by the merger of SunTrust and BB&T banks.
This month Truliant Federal Credit Union filed for a preliminary injunction in federal court to block the two banks from using the name “Truist” as its new brand.
Since the Truist brand was unveiled, Truliant has argued that name will sow confusion and irreparable harm, causing it to lose customers and erode longstanding goodwill it has built over 20 years.
“Unfortunately, the merged entities have ignored our complaint and we will not tolerate their infringement,” said Todd Hall, president/CEO of Truliant.
Truist, however, said in a statement that the two brands “are very different” and the latest legal salvo is “without merit.”
In late January Truist Financial said it would delay a name change for the bulk of its branches until at least August 2021. It also pushed back the timeline for its goal of $1.6 billion in cost savings because of delays in systems integration and office consolidations.
Gloss