Drew Angerer/Getty Images
- Capital One was hit with a major data hack affecting over 100 million customers’ Social Security and bank account numbers.
- The person behind the data hack has been identified as Paige Thompson, a 33-year-old software engineer who formally worked for Amazon.
- Thompson boasted about the hack on GitHub, Slack, and Twitter, according to federal court documents.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
A hacker responsible for breaching the data of over 100 million Capital One customers was arrested Monday after boasting about what she did online.
The suspect is accused of stealing data from millions of customers, including Social Security numbers, linked bank accounts, and other personal information, Capital One disclosed Monday.
The Justice Department identified the suspect as Paige Thompson, a software engineer in Seattle who formerly worked for Amazon. She was caught after she was found to have been boasting after the Capital One hack online, court documents say.
Thompson could face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted.
Read more: How to find out if your data was stolen in the Capital One hack, and what you can do about it
Here’s everything we know about Paige Thompson, the suspect behind the Capital One hack affecting 100 million customers:
Paige Thompson is a 33-year-old software engineer. She’s known online by her alias "erratic."
Wocintech/Flickr
Source: Justice Department
According to Thompson’s resume found online, she attended Bellevue Community College in Washington in 2005. However, she left after a little more than a year to pursue a career opportunity.
Bellevue College via Flickr
Source: Gitlab
Thompson was arrested Monday in Seattle, where she resides. Since leaving college, she’s worked as a software and systems engineer at various companies in the Seattle area.
Chris Helgren/Reuters
Source: Justice Department, Gitlab
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
See Also:
- How to find out if your data was stolen in the Capital One hack, and what you can do about it
- The ex-Amazon employee accused of hacking into the 5th-largest credit-card company in the US posted about it online, the FBI says
- Capital One says it was hit with data breach, affecting tens of millions of credit card applications
Source: Business Insider – pleskin@businessinsider.com (Paige Leskin)