Morgan Stanley Insider Exposes Private Client Names

A 30-year-old employee at the financial institution was fired last week for pilfering data on as much as 10 percent of the bank’s wealth management customer base.

The alleged inside man, Galen Marsh, recently had been promoted to financial adviser.

A source tells Forbes that Morgan Stanley discovered some of the data on file-sharing site Pastebin and believes Marsh was looking to profit by selling the stolen identities on the Internet black market.

 “This is an employment matter between Mr. Marsh and Morgan Stanley. He has acknowledged that he should not have obtained the account information and has been cooperating with Morgan Stanley to protect the firm and its customers,” Robert C. Gottlieb, Marsh’s attorney, told Forbes in an emailed statement. “To be clear, Mr. Marsh did not sell or ever intend to sell any account information to anyone.  He did not post the information online, he did not share any account information with anyone or use it for any personal financial gain.  He is devastated by what has occurred and is extremely sorry for his conduct.”

According to Bloomberg, Morgan Stanley has disabled the application used to access the data.

“Our systems detected this crime and we rapidly discovered its perpetrator,” Greg Fleming, president of Morgan Stanley’s wealth-management division, said in a memo to employees.

Marsh joined the bank in 2008 and had worked in New York.

No account passwords or Social Security numbers were taken. And Morgan Stanley says there is no evidence customers have suffered any financial losses.

The bank has begun contacting affected clients.