A Bank of Ireland
employee has lost the personal information of almost 1,000 bank
customers on a memory stick.
The details of customers' accounts, phone numbers and addresses
were wrongfully copied onto a portable flash drive which was
subsequently lost by the employee.
Bank of Ireland has informed those affected about the loss and
has promised to monitor their accounts for unusual activity.
The negative publicity comes at a time when the bank was hoping
to take advantage of UK residents transferring their cash to Irish
banks, because of the Irish government's better guarantees on their
savings amid the financial services meltdown.
Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at
Sophos, said, "Sadly, it seems the message about the need for
greater care over the transport of sensitive data just isn't
getting through to some businesses - or at least that workers
cannot be trusted to follow security guidelines and policies,
putting the reputation of their companies directly into the firing
line."
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