Lloyds Bank reveals how IT bug exposed transaction data

The bank is still investigating full details of a glitch that showed users of its mobile app transaction data belonging to other customers. Credit: Robbie Proctor / Shutterstock Lloyds Banking Group has identified the glitch that led to some of its customers being able to see details of other customers’ transactions on March 12. It revealed the information in a letter to the UK Parliament’s Treasury Committee, setting out the details of the incident and how it has been handled. The issue arose after an overnight IT change meant that two customers who accessed their accounts simultaneously could have sight of each other’s accounts, it said. The bank said that fault was because of defect in “the design of the code used to update the Application Programme Interface (API) used by the app.” It didn’t go into any more detail about the precise nature of the defect. The company stressed that at no point did any customer have full access to another account, and said it had not identified any loss suffered by any customer. It said it had notified all the relevant financial authorities, as well as the UK Information Commissioner’s Office, which regulates data privacy, and was fully co-operating with any further enquiries. The bank said that of the 21.6 million users of its mobile app, 447,936 may have been presented with another user’s transactions, or had their transactions presented to another user, and of those 114,182 customers may have clicked to view details of a transaction during the incident and thus may have been presented with details of someone else’s transactions. Mobile SecurityEndpoint ProtectionSecurityBankingFinancial Services IndustryMarketsIndustryData PrivacyPrivacy SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe