Data breaches

A director at Citizens Independent Bancorp in Logan, Ohio, resigned after members of management chastised him for an email security breach.

Federal financial regulators are incorporating lessons learned from the Swift hacks in their examinations, they told a lawmaker in a joint letter last week.

Banks have gotten better at detecting digital banking fraud, but the process of closing and reopening accounts is still a mess — and that is what could send more customers packing.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was able to access emails between staff at the agency's Office of Inspector General in a possible violation of the watchdog agency's independence, the FDIC confirmed Monday.

Many financial criminals are switching to a more sophisticated kind of identity theft in which they open accounts based on stolen identities, or on composites of information stolen from different people.

Regulators need to start paying attention to "denial-of-system" attacks as one of the triggers that could bring down a systemically important institution.

The chief executive officer of Swift, the interbank messaging system embroiled in a global bank-hacking controversy, says to expect more information about breaches to emerge as fully armoring the network's defenses is likely to take years.

The drumbeat of news about hackers stealing millions of dollars by gaming the Swift interbank messaging system should have been a wake-up call for banking executives, but it's unclear how many of them answered it. Is it too late for them to shore up their defenses?

The Federal Reserve detected more than 50 breaches of its computer systems from 2011 to 2015, Reuters reported, adding to signs that the central bank may be vulnerable to hackers or spies.

A recent spate of breaches on Asian banks that allowed hackers access to the Swift network have resulted in finger pointing, and some calls for creating a new, more secure network. But the issues faced by Swift would likely be the same with any replacement network.

Everyone agrees that electronic transactions should be as safe as possible, but a PIN mandate will not prevent online or mobile fraud.

WASHINGTON — Seven financial trade groups announced Monday that they are banding together to push legislation that would extend banklike data security standards to retailers and nonbank businesses.

Huntington Bancshares is the latest institution to add a cybersecurity expert to its board, highlighting the growing importance of guarding against hackers and other online dangers.

The rub is that the global messaging system's security is only as strong as the weakest link.

Hackers believed to be working from China accessed the computer systems of top officials at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., according to a top House lawmaker investigating the incident.

Officials from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Bangladesh Bank and payments network Swift vowed Tuesday to catch the thieves who took $81 million out of the Bangladesh central bank's account at the New York Fed.

WASHINGTON — Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Martin Gruenberg has been called to testify on recent cybersecurity breaches in front of a House committee this month.

Cyberthieves using malicious software discovered by IBM Security have stolen $4 million from business customers of two dozen financial services providers this month, IBM said.

Data breaches have become scarily commonplace. But even small financial institutions can take action to thwart hackers and minimize losses.

A former Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. employee took off with data on some 44,000 customers of closed banks when she left the agency in late February, according to an agency memo uncovered by The Washington Post.