The Bank of Montreal (BMO) and CIBC’s Simplii Financial direct banking subsidiary are warning customers about a potential data breach.
The two banks released a separate statement regarding the breach.
According to a May 28th, 2018 Simplii Financial Facebook post, the bank has “implemented enhanced online security measures in response to a claim received on Sunday, May 27 that fraudsters may have electronically accessed certain personal and account information for some of our clients.”
In a separate May 28th, 2018 Simplii media release, the bank said that the fraudsters may have accessed “certain and personal account information for approximately 40,000 of Simplii’s clients.”
“We’re taking this claim seriously and have taken action to further enhance our monitoring and security procedures,” said Michael Martin, senior vice president of Simplii Financial, in the same May 28th, media release.
“We feel that it is important to inform clients so that they can also take additional steps to safeguard their information.”
According to Simplii Financial, which was rebranded by parent bank CIBC in August 2017, following the end of a partnership with Canadian grocer Loblaw, there’s no indication that CIBC customers have been affected by the breach.
BMO issues breach statement
In a separate May 28th, 2018 BMO statement, the bank announced that it too was informed by fraudsters on May 27th, 2018 that “certain personal and financial information for a limited number of customers” had been accessed.
According to a BMO spokesperson who spoke with MobileSyrup, “less than 50,000” accounts are believed to have been breached.
“We took steps immediately when the incident occurred and we are confident that exposures identified related to customer data have been closed off,” reads an excerpt from the same May 28th media release. “We have notified and are working with relevant authorities as we continue to assess the situation.”
BMO told MobileSyrup that it appears the two breaches are related.
According to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC), both BMO and Simplii are in contact with the department and the OPC is “working with the organizations to better understand what occurred and what they are doing to mitigate the situation.”
The OPC has not opened a formal investigation.
MobileSyrup has reached out to BMO for more information. This story will be updated with a response.
Source: BMO, Simplii Financial
Update 28/05/2018 12:43pm ET: Story updated with additional information from the OPC.
Update 28/05/2018 3:51pm ET: Story updated with additional information from BMO.
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