The head of cybersecurity at Capital One has been removed following this summer’s data breach that exposed the personal information of more than 100 million customers.
Michael Johnson has transitioned from Capital One’s chief information security officer to a new role as senior vice president and special advisor for cybersecurity, according to the company. The move comes after Capital One was hacked with more than 100 million customers’ personal information, such as names, addresses, account numbers and Social Security numbers, breached.
Company officials have appointed Mike Eason, the chief information officer for the commercial banking division, as the interim cybersecurity chief while they start a search for a permanent replacement.
Former Amazon employee and Seattle resident Paige Thompson has been arrested and charged with the hack. She allegedly took advantage of a misconfigured web application firewall in the Amazon Web Services cloud that hosted the Capital One data to perform the hack. She faces five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 for the breach.
Thompson also allegedly hacked data stored in the cloud from the companies Ford, Vodafone and Infoblox as well as Michigan State University and the Ohio Department of Transportation.
Thompson has been released from jail pending trial.