Goldman says client data leaked, wants Google to delete email

(Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc said a contractor emailed confidential client data to a stranger's Gmail account by mistake, and the bank has asked a U.S. judge to order Google Inc to delete the email to avert a "needless and massive" breach of privacy.

The breach occurred on June 23 and included "highly confidential brokerage account information," Goldman said in a complaint filed last Friday in a New York state court in Manhattan.

Goldman (GS.N) did not say how many clients were affected, and wants Google's (GOOGL.O) help in tracking down who might have accessed the data.

According to Goldman, the outside contractor had been testing changes to the bank's internal processes in connection with reporting requirements set forth by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

Goldman said the contractor meant to email her report, which contained the client data, to a "gs.com" account, but instead sent it to a similarly named, unrelated "gmail.com" account.

The bank said it has been unable to retrieve the report or get a response from the Gmail account owner

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So someone is testing with sensitive client data. Loser. I love this kind of stuff.

Does GS think that email is like mailing a letter. The message and data was probably viewed with a few minutes or hours. What good does deleting the mail do now. Some how it becomes unread? I suppose there is a small chance it is a dead mailbox.

Usually for test purposes, you use a "test" database. Similar to the real thing, but with known data of the type you are investigating.

Even the three person CPA office I use knows how to encrypt data and send the password "out of band."

Hence this contractor is doubly stupid.

This wouldn't be Lois Lerner's other email account would it???

Geez... I am not so sure I believe this. I would believe that they wanted it deleted for other nefarious reasons, or they are simply testing the waters to see if they can actually get Google to delete a person's personal gmail account on the word of someone else besides an LEO.

That or the screw up they hired is someone big's idiot nephew they were forced to hire. Nepotism always bites you in the arse.

Whoever got the email should offer the not disclose the info for a small sum of cash. Use the GS measure of small when setting the price.

when does gs.com look like gmail.com?

a reply to: Maxatoria

eh they both start with g
close enough that anyone could make the mistake really
after all nobody making that much money by working with even larger sums of money could be so incompetent as to email sensitive information to a perfect stranger by mistaking two different email services
the only reason the mistake could be made is because they were so close.... its not like were dealing with drastically different things like cs.com and cmail.com
goldman should sue google for infringing on their intellectual property
clearly google is intending its email service to be confused for goldman sachs regardless of the fact that it predates it by a relatively large amount of time

Good to know people working world-class professional jobs with giant financial firms can't be bothered to make use of asymmetric encryption.

Five minutes of set up and learning could have avoided all this court order nonsense.

A firm like Goldman should be forcing its use at all levels for company related emails.

These are the power brokers who make the world go 'round.

My guess is they have learned from Enron, the IRS and a few others and were testing an implementation of a shred-o-matic email system. One that loses email on demand when they are required to produce internal email.

It could be it happened because after typing G several addresses pop up and the wrong one is selected. Defeated by fat fingering the address. Still bad work by a most likely high paid developer. I hope it was Accidenture.