Top Capital One security officer moving to new role in wake of breach: report

The top Capital One security officer is moving to a new role in the wake of the bank’s data breach, a spokesperson confirmed to The Hill.

The bank on Thursday announced to employees that Chief Information Security Officer Michael Johnson will take on the role of senior vice president and special adviser to cybersecurity to focus on the bank’s response to the hack. Capital One will launch an external search for his replacement, the spokesperson said.

Capital One announced that Mike Eason, the chief information officer at its commercial bank, will take over in the interim.

{mosads}The reshuffling comes in the months after the bank revealed that a hacker retained access to the data of existing customers and those who had applied for credit cards, with The Wall Street Journal reporting that approximately 106 million people were affected. An outside researcher tipped off Capital One 127 days after the hacker first tried to breach the company.

Since then, at least a dozen cybersecurity employees have left, alleging that Johnson and others did not address reported concerns about the bank’s cybersecurity, according to the Journal.

Johnson, who has held his position since 2017, reportedly argued with employees as some doubted his ability to address cybersecurity problems efficiently, according to previous reports. 

In August a federal grand jury indicted Paige Thompson, a former software engineer and Amazon employee, for hacking data from more than 30 companies, including Capital One.

The hack also got the attention of politicians as Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Ron Wyden (Ore.) requested that the Federal Trade Commission look into Amazon to see if its lack of security led to the breach.