August 2, 2019
Suffice to say, it’s not been a good week for the 5th largest U.S. credit card issuer. This week, Capital One was hacked in what’s being called one of the largest data breaches in history. A lone hacker gained access to more than 100 million American and Canadian customer accounts and credit card applications. The data theft exposed 140,000 social security numbers, 1 million Canadian Social Insurance numbers and 80,000 bank account numbers, among customers’ other personal data. Capital One estimates the breach will cost them between $100M and $150M in 2019 on customer notifications, credit monitoring, technology costs and legal support. And this does not include potential reputational damage or political and regulatory actions, including possible penalties. Capital One’s stock also plummeted 6% overnight.