Sean's Blog

So, to recap this article:

1. A bank employee—who likely has an IQ somewhere in the range of 60—e-mails in unencrypted fashion details about 1,325 customers, including Social Security numbers to the wrong address.

2. Said idiot/employee sends a follow-up e-mail to the wrong address requesting that they delete the previous e-mail without looking at the attachment.

3. Idiot employee receives no response, bank proceeds to go to court to request Google turn over information about the account owner, and temporarily deactivate the account. This is an understandable (if unfortunate) response, but it never should have happened in the first place and is completely inexcusable.

If I ever found out that my bank was e-mailing anything with Social Security numbers in them, and to a GMail account no less, I’d close my accounts with that bank ASAP. As for the idiot employee, I would hope that he or she is doing little more than flipping burgers now—and that’s been kind and generous to him or her.

“I may not be a smart man [or woman], but I do know what encryption is.”