Woman Charged As Hacker In Capital One Data Breach Exposing Over 100 Million Customers

A woman has been charged in connection with a hacking breach at Capital One bank that exposed information from more than 100 million credit applications over a 14-year period – what is thought to be one of the largest such attacks in recent years.

Authorities in Seattle have charged Paige A. Thompson, who also goes by the handle "erratic," with a single count of computer fraud. She appeared in court on Monday and is scheduled for a detention hearing on Thursday.

Thompson is accused of hacking credit scores, balances, income information and Social Security numbers from a total of 100 million people in the U.S. and 6 million in Canada.

Virginia-based Capital One, the nation's seventh-largest bank, acknowledged the breach in a statement on Monday, but said it believed the hacked information was not used in any actual fraud.

"While I am grateful that the perpetrator has been caught, I am deeply sorry for what has happened," said Richard D. Fairbank, chairman and CEO, in a statement. "I sincerely apologize for the understandable worry this incident must be causing those affected and I am committed to making it right."

The hacked data consists of information from credit card applications from individuals and small businesses, mostly from 2005 to early 2019. That includes 140,000 Social Security numbers and 80,000 linked bank account numbers from secured credit card consumers.

According to a criminal complaint in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington at Seattle, some of the information was posted to GitHub, a software development platform owned by Microsoft.

The complaint says Thompson boasted in Twitter direct message about having obtained the data, saying she had "basically strapped myself with a bomb vest, [expletive] dropping capitol ones dox and admitting it."