Spied accounts, hunt for principals. "He did not act alone". Bankitalia sources, asked for clarification from Intesa on accesses

He said he acted alone and without divulging the data collected, but the Bari public prosecutor's office considers it likely that Vincenzo Coviello, a former Intesa Sanpaolo employee who for more than two years, from the Bisceglie branch, allegedly spied on the current accounts of politicians, including the premier Giorgia Meloni and her sister Arianna, ministers, magistrates and other well-known personalities, has 'acted in complicity with others'.

And that there was therefore one or more instigators and one or more recipients of the information gathered by the 52-year-old from the province of Bari. It will be the investigation that will ascertain whether the banker is telling the truth or whether the investigators' suspicions are valid.

What already seems clear to the investigators, however, is the extreme ease with which a mid-level employee of the bank was able to carry out 6,637 abusive accesses between February 2022 and April 2024, viewing in his working hours the bank movements of 3,572 customers of 679 branches of the institution, both famous people and ordinary account holders. That is, he would not have carried out any hacking, but would have entered individual current accounts by simply accessing the bank's systems from his workstation in the Bisceglie branch where he worked, on secondment from the Agribusiness branch in Barletta.

So much so that Bankitalia, bank sources emphasise, has asked Intesa Sanpaolo "to provide clarification on the incident and on the initiatives it intends to take in this regard". Recalling that national and European supervision has long been asking banks "to strengthen security and business continuity safeguards" against cyber and cybernetic risks. "It is up to the banks to guard against these risks," the sources concluded.

Coviello, who was dismissed from Intesa Sanpaolo in August after disciplinary proceedings following the discovery of the intrusions, is under investigation by the Bari Public Prosecutor's Office for abusive access to computer systems and attempted procuring of information concerning state security. And it cannot be ruled out that the bank is formally so too, since for this type of offence the law provides for the liability of legal persons. The ex-banker's home was searched and phones, PCs, tablets, and both personal and work USB devices were seized, which will be subjected to forensic tests.