Capital One's mega hack: 106 million North American customers' data lost

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. (KTVU) - Capital One lost information for 100 million American customers and 6 million Canadians to a hacker who worked for a mega company that handled Capital One's data.

Capital One always asks, "What's in your wallet?"

Well it turns out that Capital One just got pick pocketed for millions and millions and millions of peoples' private information.

The company is finally fessing up to customers, shareholders and the media on a successful hack that may have happened 5 months ago.

At the Capital One Cafe in Walnut Creek, established to create a new kind of ultra friendly consumer financial experience, we spoke with two credit card holders who responded to the massive mega hack.

"I'm very concerned. I'm a little nervous because I'm trying to work on my credit score right now and so, a lot nervous," said customer James Oey.

Retired Navy Officer Gene Abernathy says Capital One has responded quickly on other issues and hopes they will on this one.

"The little bit that they've told us is they will notify us directly in the event it's applicable to any of us, if it's affected out account, etc. Essentially that's all they told us because they don't have all the information themselves yet," said Abernathy.

The hack included 140,000 social security numbers, a particularly dangerous problem to those folks according to Consumer Action.

"They're at even greater risk than the average person of having their identity compromised," said Joe Ridout of Consumer Action.

Capital One's stock price lost only six percent today, small considering the legal jeopardy it faces.

A former employee of Amazon Web Services, used by Capital One, has been caught.

She faces 5 years in prison and a quarter million dollar fine.

"It's not as though this was an infinitely sophisticated person. She basically gave herself away online. So, it's reasonable enough to question if they were doing enough to protect your data. I think we need to see some more serious penalties for companies that mishandle your information or fail to protect it adequately. That's the bottom line," said Ridout.

Consumer Actions further says only freezing your credit profile until you temporarily unfreeze it to get a loan, car, home or credit card will protect you.

Capital One issued this statement:

Consumer Action is not buying it.

"It's ironic that whose slogan is 'What's in Your Wallet' is now causing customers to wonder, 'Who's in my wallet?'" said Ridout.

Cyber hacking has always been a technological game of cat and mouse that's been going on for decades.

But at this late stage in the game, it's fair to ask: how can so much data be so readily to hackers?