Michael J. Moore reports:
Morgan Stanley (MS) fired an employee it said stole data, including account numbers, for as many as 350,000 wealth-management clients and posted some of the information online.
The bank alerted law enforcement and found no evidence that clients lost any money, New York-based Morgan Stanley said today in a statement. The firm said it detected account information for about 900 clients on an external website and “promptly” had it removed.
Read more on Bloomberg.
The following is the text of the statement posted on Morgan Stanley’s site today:
Morgan Stanley Says Employee Misappropriated Wealth Management Data
Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) today began advising certain Wealth Management clients that an employee had stolen partial client data. The Wealth Management employee has been terminated, and law enforcement and regulatory authorities have been advised of the incident.
While there is no evidence of any economic loss to any client, it has been determined that certain account information of approximately 900 clients, including account names and numbers, was briefly posted on the Internet. Morgan Stanley detected this exposure and the information was promptly removed.
Overall, partial account information of up to 10 percent of all Wealth Management clients was stolen. The data stolen does not include account passwords or social security numbers. The Firm is taking the precaution of notifying all potentially affected clients and instituting enhanced security procedures including fraud monitoring on these accounts.
All impacted clients are in the process of being contacted by the Firm and their Financial Advisors. A dedicated information line also has been established at 855-398-6437 (U.S. and Canada) or 512-201-2186 (outside the U.S. and Canada).
Morgan Stanley takes extremely seriously its responsibility to safeguard client data, and is working with the appropriate authorities to conduct and conclude a thorough investigation of this incident.
Morgan Stanley is a leading global financial services firm providing investment banking, securities, investment management and wealth management services. With offices in more than 43 countries, the Firm’s employees serve clients worldwide including corporations, governments, institutions and individuals. For more information about Morgan Stanley, please visit www.morganstanley.com.