Hoboken Man Admits To Stealing Data Treasure Trove From Banking Giant

A Hoboken financial adviser has pleaded guilty to illegally acquiring confidential client information from banking giant Morgan Stanley.

On Monday, Galen Marsh, 31, of Hoboken, pleaded guilty to unauthorized access to a computer in federal court.

According to a release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, while employed as a financial adviser, Marsh obtained unauthorized access to confidential data on approximately 730,000 Morgan Stanley clients.

In total, Marsh conducted a total of approximately 6,000 unauthorized searches in the bank’s computer systems, and illegally acquired data including names, addresses, telephone numbers, account numbers, fixed-income investment information and account values from about 730,000 client accounts, prosecutors said.

Marsh then uploaded the data to servers on his home computer and used it for his personal advantage, prosecutors stated.

In addition, from October of 2013 to December of 2014, Marsh engaged in talks regarding potential employment with two of the bank’s competitors.

The New York Times reported that in December, Marsh was named as the source behind an attempt to sell six million account records at Morgan Stanley - including passwords and login data – on the Internet site Pastebin.com.

He was fired shortly after the data dump, the Times reported.

In January, Marsh’s attorney told Bloomberg Business that his client “did not sell nor ever intend to sell any account information whatsoever.”

Marsh faces a maximum of five years in prison and three years of supervised release, prosecutors stated.

He is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 7.