The National Credit Union Administration suffered a major security breach when an examiner lost a thumb drive containing information about members of the Palm Springs Federal Credit Union in October 2014. While the thumb drive did not contain PINs or passwords, it did contain names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and account numbers of the members. NCUA IG James Hagen will now conduct an audit to test the controls in place and why the NCUA initially concealed the breach. A spokesman for the IG announced that “the IG was not informed about the breach by the regulator, rather it learned about it from press accounts.”
This is the first announced data breach for NCUA, but lost or stolen devices are becoming more common. Any wrongdoing found in the audit will help safeguard member information in the future by ensuring the safeguard of sensitive data.
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