The

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for consumer protection in the financial sector. CFPB's jurisdiction includes banks, credit unions, securities firms, Payday lo ...

(CFPB) experienced a significant

security breach Security is protection from, or resilience against, potential harm (or other unwanted coercion). Beneficiaries (technically referents) of security may be persons and social groups, objects and institutions, ecosystems, or any other entity or phen ...

in March 2023 when a former employee transferred

confidential information Confidentiality involves a set of rules or a promise sometimes executed through non-disclosure agreement, confidentiality agreements that limits the access to or places restrictions on the distribution of certain types of information. Legal con ...

on approximately 256,000 consumers and forty-five financial institutions to their personal email account. The unauthorized transfer involved data from seven firms, though the majority of the consumer information came from one institution. The data was sent over fourteen emails and it contained

personally identifiable information Personal data, also known as personal information or personally identifiable information (PII), is any information related to an identifiable person. The abbreviation PII is widely used in the United States, but the phrase it abbreviates has fou ...

(PII) of consumers. The employee also sent two spreadsheets with names and transaction-specific account numbers for about 256,000 consumer accounts at a single institution. Neither the firms nor the employee have been publicly identified. The CFPB first became aware of abuse on 14 February 2023. They informed U.S. lawmakers of the incident on March 21, but it was not made public until April 24. Shortly following the data breach, Senator Cruz and Rep Donalds authored a bill seeking to eliminate the CFPB. In response to the 2023 data breach, the Southwest Public Policy Institute (SPPI) established the Bureau to Protect Financial Consumers (BPFCCFPB) to advocate for better oversight and protection of consumer data. The Institute claims this initiative reflects broader concerns about data security and management practices within governmental consumer protection agencies.

References

{{reflist Data breaches in the United States

data breach A data breach, also known as data leakage, is "the unauthorized exposure, disclosure, or loss of personal information". Attackers have a variety of motives, from financial gain to political activism, political repression, and espionage. There ...

March 2023 in the United States