President Barack Obama’s bad security week continued late Thursday with the announcement of a massive cyberattack compromising 76 million households with accounts at JPMorgan Chase, where the president himself also has an account.
The bank will neither confirm nor deny whether Obama’s personal data was caught up in the security breach, Business Insider reports, which included names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses “and internal JPMorgan Chase information relating to such users…” (RELATED: JPMorgan Says 76 Million Households Affected In Recent Cyberattack)
The nation’s largest bank said there was no evidence indicating any account information including “account numbers, passwords, user IDs, dates of birth or Social Security numbers” was compromised.
A White House press pool report from July revealed Obama has a “JPMorgan Card,” which he used to cover the tab at a restaurant in Texas.
“To protect customers’ privacy, we do not publicly confirm, deny or otherwise identify customers,” the bank told the publication in an email.
In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Thursday, JPMorgan revealed a cyberattack from earlier this year compromised personal information belonging to 76 million households and 7 million small businesses.
Agencies including the FBI and NSA have been investigating a successful hack against the bank since August, when investigators believe a Russian-based hacking network exploited a vulnerability on a bank website and broke through multiple layers of complex security to steal gigs of sensitive data. (RELATED: FBI, NSA Investigating Whether Russia Hacked U.S. Banks To Retaliate Against Economic Sanctions)
Sources familiar with the probe told Bloomberg in August that data seized from bank employees — including executives — may have included customer data.
JPMorgan is on high alert for unusual activity but reports it has yet to encounter any unusual fraud that could be linked to the hack.
“How would you shake the United States back? Attack a bank in cyberspace,” former NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander said last month. “If it was them, they just sent a real message: ‘You’re vulnerable.’” (RELATED: Ex-NSA Chief Keith Alexander Says JPMorgan Hack Proves U.S. Financial System Is Vulnerable)
