WASHINGTON — A former senior staffer at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was found guilty of embezzling confidential information about banks from the agency before she left her post, and could face up to 20 years in prison.
Allison Aytes, who worked as a cross-border risk analyst in the FDIC’s Office of Complex Financial Institutions in New York, stole several banks’ living will data in August 2015 before she resigned the following month to pursue a job in the private sector, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
“Aytes embezzled sensitive and confidential information about banks that was the property of the United States government shortly before she resigned from the FDIC to seek job opportunities at those very same banks,” said U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue in a statement from Dec. 11, when Aytes was found guilty by a federal jury after a six-day trial. “With today’s verdict, Aytes has been held accountable for abusing her position of trust for personal gain.”
The 2015 breach was one of multiple episodes that raised questions about the FDIC's cybersecurity systems. During the 2015 fiscal year alone, FDIC had 20 information breaches including nine that contained personally identifiable information. The agency came
In October 2015, an FDIC employee departing the agency in Florida stole information on 40,000 individuals and 30,000 banks, but a congressional committee found that the FDIC had characterized the breach as only affecting 10,000 individuals.
The agency
“This case makes clear that those who compromise sensitive FDIC information will be held accountable for their actions,” said FDIC Inspector General Jay Lerner in a statement. “We are committed to investigating such breaches of public trust, and to protecting the integrity of confidential data maintained by the agency.”
