Last Thursday, the Zürcher Kantonalbank (ZKB) received troubling news: Unidentified individuals claimed to have stolen dozens of customer data records and demanded 3 million Swiss francs from the state-owned institution, threatening to publish the data otherwise.

As of Friday, the suspected perpetrators are in custody, according to the bank. One of them is a former ZKB employee who left the bank last year.

Data Set Included Information from 58 Customers

The stolen dataset included information from 58 customers, limited to names, internal customer numbers, and birthdates, with addresses for 30 of those customers. The bank has already contacted these affected customers directly.

The police secured the data during the arrest of the suspects. The bank confirmed that no customer data was published and no other ZKB customers were affected.

«The Zürcher Kantonalbank can confirm, based on its own tests and analyses as well as those by external specialists, that this was not a cyberattack involving data leakage. Our databases and systems were never compromised, and customer funds were never at risk,» the bank stated in a letter. No further details were provided by the bank.

For investigative reasons, finews.ch has refrained from reporting on the matter upon the Zürcher Kantonalbank's request.