Morgan Stanley is a multinational investment agency headquartered on Broadway in Manhattan. Founded by Harold Stanley and Henry Sturgis Morgan in 1935, Morgan Stanley has hit No.61 in the Forbes 500 of the biggest US corporations by total revenue.
The breach was discovered when personal information of Morgan Stanley clients was found on various dark web auction sites. As a result, Morgan Stanley has to pay $35 million as a lawsuit settlement.
The breach occurred through something you would never think of; the USBs containing sensitive client information weren't disposed of properly. Morgan Stanley hired a cheap moving company with no experience in hard drive disposal to get rid of the information. The breach could have been easily avoided if the company had hired an experienced company that knew how to dispose of the USBs properly.
This breach has no set date. The improper and cheapskate disposal of the hard drives has been happening since 2015.
The breach has affected over 15 million clients. Some of these are families, some individuals, and some are even businesses. However, many have had a lot of personal information sold on auction sites.
The breach was on an unidentified number of files, approximately seven years worth. The hard drives and USBs were improperly disposed of starting in early 2015, causing the lawsuit against Morgan Stanley.