Citizens Bank: customer data accessed by an unauthorized third party
Checked
If you got a Citizens letter, it offers two years of free Equifax credit monitoring. Check your credit reports and consider a free credit freeze.
Who is affected
Citizens Bank customers who receive a notice letter. The Texas Attorney General's breach list showed 14,371 Texans affected as of Oct 22, 2026. We found no national total from Citizens or any regulator. The Texas filing lists the company as Citizens Bank, One Citizens Bank Way, Johnston, Rhode Island.
What happened
Citizens' notice letter says that on Sept 10, 2026, it "identified an issue that allowed some data to be accessed by an unauthorized third-party." The letter says Citizens has "found no evidence that any customer data was examined or used maliciously, and the issue has been fully remediated." The letter does not say how the access happened or how long it lasted.
- Information involved, per the letter: name, Social Security number, date of birth, phone number and email address.
- Information involved, per the Texas filing: name, address, Social Security number and date of birth.
What to do now
- If you get a letter, Citizens offers a free two-year Equifax Credit Watch Gold membership. Enroll at www.equifax.com/activate with the activation code printed in your letter. The letter says you must be over 18 with a credit file to use it.
- Citizens' letter asks customers to review account statements and credit history for unauthorized activity and to report anything suspicious to Citizens right away.
- Get your free credit reports at www.annualcreditreport.com, as the letter suggests.
- Consider a credit freeze. The FTC says a freeze is free to place and lift, and that you contact all three bureaus (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion). Citizens' letter also lists Innovis.
- You can also place a free fraud alert. The FTC says you contact one bureau, and it must tell the other two.
- For questions, Citizens' letter lists 1-866-950-8157 (Monday to Friday, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. EST; Saturday and Sunday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. EST). Our advice: call the number printed in the letter itself, not one sent to you by text or email. The same number appears on the sample letter posted by the California Attorney General, linked below.
Dates
- Event date: Citizens identified the issue Sept 10, 2026.
- Reported to the California Attorney General: Oct 19, 2026 (per its breach list). Published by the Texas Attorney General: Oct 20, 2026. The sample letter's date field is blank.
- Date checked: Oct 22, 2026.