Staff at Capital One say they warned of their worry over security breaches at the bank before last month’s huge hacker attack happened.

106 million customers and applicants were affected in July’s breach, which saw personal data stolen from the financial corporation in one of the biggest violations of recent years.

Giving warning

Because of the high turnover in its security sector, as well as failure to properly install defense software, staff say they had mentioned their worry about potential attacks occurring.

People working at Capital One reported that around a third of employees in the cybersecurity unit had left last year. The people running that sector are responsible for cyber protection through configuring firewalls and detecting flaws in protection.

A spokeswoman for the company said: “Safeguarding information is essential to our mission and to our role as a financial institution. We’ve invested heavily in cybersecurity and will continue to do so.”

“We will incorporate the learnings of this incident to further strengthen our cyber defense,” she added.

Targeting other companies

Paige Thompson, a software developer, was arrested as a suspect when she reportedly spoke about committing the crime online. Thompson was also found with “terabytes” of data in her possession.

It has also come out that the alleged cyberthief also targeted 30 other companies, along with Capital One, as part of a cyber hacking spree.

The FBI says they are still investigating the breach and trying to find everyone involved.