BoA Experiences Potential Data Breach With PPP Applications

Bank of America notified principal owners of a potential data breach after the bank uploaded the loan applications of some customers to a “limited access, controlled” Small Business Administration (SBA) test application platform, according to a letter to customers made public by the California attorney general’s office.

Bank of America said the platform was meant to let authorized lenders experiment with the procedure for sending the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) applications to the agency before the actual submission process.

A “limited number of other lenders and their vendors authorized by the SBA to participate in the program” might have been able to see application data for a “limited time,” according to the bank. It said in the letter that there is “no indication that your information was viewed or misused by these lenders or their vendor.”

The bank noted that the data “was not visible to other business clients applying for loans, or to the public, at any time.” Additionally, it said the process “did not affect the actual submission of PPP loan applications to the SBA.” The bank had said it uploaded some client loan application data to the SBA test application platform on April 22.

It said that it sought and confirmed the deletion of the data from the test website the same day. The data that might have been visible for a short time encompassed business and contact information like taxpayer identification numbers and business addresses.

The bank also noted that “as a principal owner, personal information about you, such as your name, address, Social Security number, phone number, email address and citizenship may have been involved.”

Bank of America said it has worked in conjunction with the SBA to process over 305,000 PPP loan applications, providing small businesses in need with over $25 billion in financial relief.

In separate news, the newest Paycheck Protection Program Report from the SBA indicates that the agency has given the green light to 4.4 million loans for a net tally of approximately $511.2 billion as of May 23.