A Morgan Stanley insider has been charged with stealing confidential information and sending it to his home e-mail account. The charges include accusations of acting in unison with an unnamed co-conspirator to steal the company’s client list and rate list. Despite the fact that the insiders were detected, experts at InfoWatch point out that the company’s corporate secrets were still compromised.
A former consultant at Morgan Stanley has been arrested on charges of stealing electronic client lists from the US investment bank, as well as information on fees for the prime brokerage business, reports Finextra.com.
Ira Chilowitz, a former consultant at the investment bank, has been charged with unauthorized computer access and covering up his actions. At a recent hearing, a federal magistrate judge set Chilowitz's bail at $100,000.
According to the prosecution, in February the insider sent a copy of the administrative client list and fees for the prime brokerage business from Morgan Stanley's offices in New York to his home account. Chilowitz is also accused of engaging in a conspiracy with an unnamed co-conspirator who was supposed to facilitate and cover up the theft of the confidential data.
“Morgan Stanley is now actively seeking a guilty verdict for the insider, but the breach occurred back in February, meaning the confidential information was compromised in any case. The theft was carried out using one of the most common channels – e-mail. A specialized product designed to monitor e-mail traffic could easily have blocked the leak and prevented corporate secrets from being compromised,” explains Denis Zenkin, marketing director at InfoWatch.
Source: Finextra.com