Information on roughly 350,000 Morgan Stanley clients was stolen from the firm, the investment bank said Monday.
The employee, who worked in the bank’s wealth management business section, stole the information of 350,000 customers and posted some information on about 900 clients online on Dec. 27.
The information — which was client names and account numbers but not passwords, Social Security numbers or credit card information — was removed from the Internet, and a U.S.-based employee was fired, a Morgan Stanley spokesman said, according to the Associated Press.
The spokesman believes the employee was attempting to sell the clients’ information. The theory, if correct, could explain why only a small portion of the stolen data was posted online — to serve as a tease to a potential buyer about the value of the remaining information.
While the employee’s identity and position remain private, the bank said it hasn’t found any losses suffered by any client.
Morgan Stanley also maintains the incident was not a case of computer hacking.
Shares of Morgan Stanley fell $1.32 — or 3.4 percent — to $27.39 in late Monday afternoon trading.
