[Photo: blogtrepreneur.com/tech]

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency detected last month a cybersecurity breach, committed by a former employee in November 2015.  Over 10,000 agency records containing personal information were removed.  The former employee was identified only as a retiree who downloaded the information shortly before leaving the agency.

The agency detected the intrusion during a retrospective 2-year review of employees downloading information.  The data, which was downloaded onto 2 thumb drives, apparently was encrypted and there is no evidence that data taken was “disclosed” or “misused.”

Upon discovery, the data breach was immediately referred to the Treasury Department’s Inspector General’s office.  The breach was also flagged to Congress and 3 other government agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security. The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, one of the congressional panels notified of the breach, said it is monitoring the OCC’s response.

The OCC incident follows a string of recent cybersecurity breaches at another bank regulator - the FDIC.