Morgan Stanley: Employee stole client data

Morgan Stanley (MS) says an employee stole some data from about 900 of the firm's wealth management clients -- up to ten percent of the total -- and "briefly" posted it on the Internet.

Morgan Stanley has fired the employee and notified law enforcement and regulatory authorities.

The bank stressed that there has been no economic loss experienced by any of the clients and that the data included account names and numbers. The information did not include Social Security numbers or account passwords. Morgan Stanley will notify all affected clients and plans to use "enhanced security procedures including fraud monitoring on these accounts."

Bank officials reportedly think that the employee was trying to sell the data. Investigations are ongoing. Morgan Stanley reportedly first noticed the theft on Dec. 27 in a regular check of suspicious Internet sites. The company said that it had traced the activity back to the specific employee within 24 hours.

Morgan Stanley is the country's second-largest wealth management firm and the sixth-largest financial holding company with $814.5 billion in assets.

The firm's shares were down 3.3 percent at $37.44 in early afternoon trading.

Traditionally, the largest security threats to companies come from the inside. Employees typically have the security access, opportunity, and knowledge to identify and obtain valuable information.

However, outside criminal hackers have also been targeting banks. During the summer of 2014, cyberattacks compromised 83 million accounts at JPMorgan Chase (JPM). The same group of hackers attacked nine other major banks at the same time.

Those attacks were allegedly traced back to Russian hackers who might have ties to that country's government. There was some speculation at the time that the attacks could have been a reprisal for economic sanctions on Russia in the wake of the annexation of Crimea and incursions into Ukraine.