Banks are learning an age-old lesson all over again: the weakest link in security is people and not computers, as several cases of human error causing breaches of client confidentiality have highlighted.

Investec Private Bank has sent out an e-mail accidentally disclosing the e-mail addresses of a number of its clients. This follows ITWeb's report earlier this week that First National Bank's (FNB's) Corporate BANKit division had unmasked 477 client addresses via e-mail.

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The email addresses may be more valuable to a competitor trying to steal the clients than anything else, but every little piece of seemingly inocuous information helps a social engineer out.