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Wells Fargo Bank is warning 5,000 consumers nationwide that hackers stole key personal data, including Social Security numbers and driver's license information, from a third-party vendor customer database. The thieves could use the pilfered information to produce counterfeit cards, the San Francisco-based bank is telling customers. However, Wells Fargo does not yet know if the thieves manufactured counterfeit debit and credit cards with the stolen data. "We don't know how the information has been used," Mary Berg, a Wells Fargo spokesperson, tells ATM&Debit News, a CardLine sister publication. Microbilt Corp., a security firm based in Kennesaw, Ga., notified Wells Fargo July 1 of unauthorized activity on the bank's system to gather consumer data on the bank's customers and other consumers who do not have accounts with the bank. "We believe the unauthorized activity occurred in May and June, from what Microbilt has told us," Berg says. "We shut down the access code." Wells Fargo is notifying the affected consumers by letter. The bank also bought the consumers one-year subscriptions to IdentityGuard, which protects subscribers from identity theft. Wells Fargo also is working closely with the three major credit bureaus so unauthorized financial activities will not affect consumers' credit ratings.
