Sen. Elizabeth Warren contacts Capital One CEO over data breach

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., sent a letter Thursday to the chairman and CEO of Capital One Financial Corp. seeking detailed information on the massive data breach reported last month.

Sen. Warren, who is a member of the Senate’s Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee and a Democratic candidate for president, said in the letter to Richard D. Fairbank that she is “deeply troubled” by the report of the data breach, which impacted more than 100 million people. 

She said she would like an explanation as to how the database was breached, the steps Capital One has taken to fix the vulnerability and what efforts the company will make to rectify its impact on those whose data was exposed.

“Public reports suggest that the circumstances of the breach were not unique or unforeseeable,” said Sen. Warren in the letter. “It is also disturbing that Capital One did not detect the breach until nearly four months after the incident,” she said.

“Capital One’s response to potentially affected customers also raises questions,” she said. While the company has promised to notify affected individuals, it has not specified whom it considers to be affected and how and when they will be notified.

The letter includes a detailed list of questions concerning the breach and asks that Mr. Fairbank provide the answers no later than Aug. 19.

Sen. Warren says in her letter that she had investigated the 2017 Equifax Inc. data breach. A $700 million settlement of that case was announced last month.

The chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, has also said the committee will look into the matter, according to news reports. A spokesman for the senator could not immediately be reached for comment.

A Capital One spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.