Fidelity Data Breach

Fidelity says data breach exposed personal data of 77,000 customers.

Fidelity Investments, one of the world’s largest asset managers, has confirmed that over 77,000 customers had personal information compromised during an August data breach, including Social Security numbers and driver’s licenses.

The Boston, Massachusetts-based investment firm said in a filing with Maine’s attorney general on Wednesday that an unnamed third party accessed information from its systems between August 17 and August 19 “using two customer accounts that they had recently established.” 

“We detected this activity on August 19 and immediately took steps to terminate the access,” Fidelity said in a letter sent to those affected, adding that the incident did not involve any access to customers’ Fidelity accounts.

Fidelity confirmed that a total of 77,099 customers were affected by the breach, and its completed review of the compromised information determined that customers’ personal information was affected. When reached by TechCrunch, Fidelity did not say how the creation of two Fidelity customer accounts allowed access to the data of thousands of other customers.

In another data breach notice filed with New Hampshire’s attorney general, Fidelity revealed that the third party “accessed and retrieved certain documents related to Fidelity customers and other individuals by submitting fraudulent requests to an internal database that housed images of documents pertaining to it’s customers.”

Fidelity said the data breach included customers’ Social Security numbers and driver’s licenses, according to a separate data breach notice filed by Fidelity with the Massachusetts’ attorney general.

No information about the breach was found on Fidelity’s website at the time of writing.

When reached, Fidelity spokesperson Michael Aalto told TechCrunch that the incident did not involve access to Fidelity customers accounts “or funds.” Fidelity declined to answer our specific questions about the incident.

According to Fidelity, the company has more than 51 million individual investors as customers, counting some $14.1 trillion in total customer assets as of June 2024.