The employee fired by Morgan Stanley for allegedly stealing and attempting to sell client account information has been named as Galen Marsh.
In the story, the employee was fired after stealing account names and numbers of clients in the wealth management division and briefly posting it online. It was originally believed that this related to 900 of the bank’s clients, around 10 per cent of the total number of clients.
According to Reuters, a person familiar with the story identified the person as Galen Marsh, a 30-year-old financial adviser from one of Morgan Stanley’s New York branches. The data was published on around 900 accounts as an apparent advertisement, and related to about 10 per cent of Morgan Stanley’s 3.5 million clients.
The source said that Marsh used an external application to post the data online, but it was not immediately clear how he was able to allegedly breach compliance protocol to steal client information and post it on the web. Morgan Stanley has since restricted employee access to that application.
A Morgan Stanley press statement said: “Overall, partial account information of up to 10 per cent of all wealth management clients was stolen. The data stolen does not include account passwords or social security numbers. The firm is taking the precaution of notifying all potentially affected clients and instituting enhanced security procedures including fraud monitoring on these accounts.
“Morgan Stanley takes extremely seriously its responsibility to safeguard client data, and is working with the appropriate authorities to conduct and conclude a thorough investigation of this incident.”
Marsh joined Morgan Stanley in April 2008 as a sales assistant, entered its trainee program in 2010 and became a financial adviser in March 2014.
Robert Gottlieb, who is representing Marsh with the law firm Gottlieb & Gordon, denied that his client posted the information online or tried to sell it. He said Marsh is “devastated by what has occurred and is extremely sorry for his conduct”.
“This is an employment matter between Mr. Marsh and Morgan Stanley,” Gottlieb said. “He has acknowledged that he should not have obtained the account information and he has been cooperating fully with Morgan Stanley to protect the firm and its customers.”
Paul Ayers, VP EMEA at Vormetric, said: “This case demonstrates that even the largest businesses are still struggling to protect their data from those already legitimately ‘inside the fence’. Indeed, the breadth and depth of private and public sector breaches in the past few years that have resulted from trusted insiders turning rogue indicates that there is a major disconnect when it comes to organisations’ handling of data security – and, crucially, how they manage their privileged users.
“While there has been no evidence of economic loss to the some 350,000 clients who had their names and account numbers leaked, the inappropriate or unauthorised access and theft of confidential company or customer data is no longer acceptable. Not least when solutions exist that allow you to restrict access to sensitive information while still giving employees the tools they need to perform their work – namely, transparent encryption coupled with deep-level sec
urity intelligence.
“The bottom line is that, with proper controls in place, you can maintain the essential activities of your staff and privileged accounts, without needlessly putting data at risk.”
