Industry News: ESG5

The Target: Santander, the euro zone's second-biggest bank by market value.

The Take: The bank said in a statement that the data was from customers in Spain, Chile and Uruguay, as well as all current and some former employees. No data on transactions, nor any credentials that would allow to perform transactions were stored in the database, it said.

The Vector: The bank said it recently became aware of unauthorized access to one of its databases hosted by a third-party provider.

This breach highlights the extreme importance of timely software updates for known software vulnerabilities, not only in systems directly under a firm’s control, but in third-party systems the firm relies upon as well. The longer a firm, or its vendors, hold out on deploying the most up-to-date software for their systems, the greater the chance an attacker will exploit the issue.

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