Royal Bank of Canada has become embroiled in a privacy scandal engulfing Facebook after it emerged that the social network appeared to provide a raft of Big Tech companies with privileged access to user accounts.

HSBC has locked some customers out their online accounts in response to a data breach that saw unauthorised users gain access to a host of financial and personal information.

Facebook ’s massive data breach, could cost as much as $1.63 billion in fines from regulators in Europe, where privacy laws are more stringent.

Technology and innovation across sectors remain a primary focus as advances evolve at a rapid rate. Many institutions are looking to leverage technology for a broad range of uses, in financial institutions the primary factor remains security and risk management when implementing such changes.

British Airways is warning that another 185,000 customers may have had their payment card details stolen in a data breach.

Facebook, already facing scrutiny over how it handles the private information of its users, said on Friday that an attack on its computer network had exposed the personal information of nearly 50 million users.

The details of millions of payment cards may have been exposed in a hack on hotel giant Marriott affecting 500 million guests.

Anthem, Inc. has agreed to pay $16 million to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and take substantial corrective action to settle potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy and Security Rules after a series of cyberattacks led to the largest U.S. health data breach in history and exposed the electronic protected health information of almost 79 million people.

Facebook, already facing scrutiny over how it handles the private information of its users, said on Friday that an attack on its computer network had exposed the personal information of nearly 50 million users.

Vision Direct says that the personal details and payment card numbers, expiry dates and CVV codes of thousands of customers have been stolen by criminal hackers.

A North Korean hacking group has used the Swift network to try to steal more than $1.1 billion dollars from at least 16 financial institutions around the world since 2014, according to security specialist FireEye, which warns that he crooks are still operating.

The UK's banking watchdog is threatening to charge Tesco Bank £30m for its failure to prevent a cyber attacks that affected thousands of customers in 2016.