KYC/AML refers to Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering records: the identity, verification, and transaction documents organizations collect to confirm who a customer is and to detect suspicious financial activity. In casinos, banks, and payment-heavy businesses, this can include passports, proof-of-address files, source-of-funds forms, and account histories.
These records matter in cyber security because they are highly sensitive and valuable. A breach of KYC/AML data can enable identity theft, fraud, account takeover, and extortion, while also creating regulatory exposure. Attackers often target them through credential theft, abused admin accounts, or exfiltration from internal case-management systems. Defenders protect them with strong access control, MFA, segmentation, logging, encryption, and strict data minimization so only the systems and staff that need the data can reach it.