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FedEx said that it has found no evidence that private customer data was “misappropriated” when it was made visible on an unsecured server earlier in February.
According to news from Reuters, the server that was made visible contained more than 119,000 scanned documents from U.S. and international citizens, including passports, driver’s licenses and security identification. The potentially compromised data had been stored on an Amazon S3 storage service and was collected by Bongo International, which FedEx had acquired in 2014. Bongo, which added up international shipping prices, was terminated by the company.
“After a preliminary investigation, we can confirm that some archived Bongo International account information located on a server hosted by a third-party, public cloud provider is secure,” FedEx spokesman Jim McCluskey said in a statement. “We have found no indication that any information has been misappropriated and will continue our investigation.”
The spokesman would not clarify which records were secure, and he wouldn’t disclose whether or not the company involved the authorities.
The potential breach in data privacy comes as stocks from FedEx and its rival UPS have been under pressure after reports surfaced that Amazon was getting into the delivery market in a bigger way. The service, which is known as “Shipping with Amazon,” is launching in Los Angeles and possibly other locations, a person who has knowledge of the program told Reuters.
Once investors got wind of the news, shares of both FedEx and UPS slid more than 4 percent late last week. Still, both delivery services — and analysts — are downplaying concerns the experiment is a threat to the business of FedEx or UPS in the near future. Cowen and Co Analyst Helane Becker, for example, said Amazon would have to spend an estimated $100 billion to build a network and acquire the equipment to go up against FedEx and UPS.
