Comparison Overview

Wells Fargo

VS

Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Wells Fargo

420 Montgomery St, San Francisco, California, US, 94103
Last Update: 2025-12-09
Between 800 and 849

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a diversified, community-based financial services company with approximately $1.9 trillion in assets. Wells Fargo’s vision is to satisfy our customers’ financial needs and help them succeed financially. Founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo provides banking, investment and mortgage products and services, as well as consumer and commercial finance, through more than 7,300 locations, 12,000 ATMs, the internet (wellsfargo.com) and mobile banking, and has offices in over 40 countries and territories to support customers who conduct business in the global economy. With approximately 250,000 team members, Wells Fargo serves one in three households in the United States. Wells Fargo & Company was ranked No. 41 on Fortune’s 2022 rankings of America’s largest corporations. News, insights and perspectives from Wells Fargo are also available at Wells Fargo Stories. Relevant military experience is considered for veterans and transitioning service men and women. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, status as a protected veteran, or any other legally protected characteristic.© 2016 Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. All rights reserved. Member FDIC.

NAICS: 52
NAICS Definition: Finance and Insurance
Employees: 212,521
Subsidiaries: 2
12-month incidents
0
Known data breaches
4
Attack type number
1

Bank of America Merrill Lynch

100 North Tryon Street, Charlotte, NC, 28255, US
Last Update: 2025-12-09
Between 750 and 799

From local communities to global markets, we are dedicated to shaping the future responsibly and helping clients thrive in a changing world. “Bank of America Merrill Lynch” is the marketing name for the global banking and global markets businesses of Bank of America Corporation. Bank of America is a marketing name for the Retirement Services business of Bank of America Corporation. Lending, derivatives, and other commercial banking activities are performed globally by banking affiliates of Bank of America Corporation, including Bank of America, N.A., Member FDIC. Securities, strategic advisory, and other investment banking activities are performed globally by investment banking affiliates of Bank of America Corporation (“Investment Banking Affiliates”), including, in the United States, BofA Securities, Inc., Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated, and Merrill Lynch Professional Clearing Corp., all of which are registered broker-dealers and Members of SIPC, and in other jurisdictions, by locally registered entities. BofA Securities, Inc., Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated and Merrill Lynch Professional Clearing Corp. are registered as futures commission merchants with the CFTC and are members of the NFA.   Investment products: Are Not FDIC Insured May Lose Value Are Not Bank Guaranteed Any opinions, views, statements, estimates or projections (“posts”) posted on this web page are solely those of the individual author(s). As such, posts by an employee of BofAML or any of its affiliates are solely those of such employee or agent and do not necessarily reflect the views of BofAML. BofAML is not responsible for the content, or output of external websites. For Terms and Conditions and Disclaimers, please visit go.bofaml.com/social. Bank of America LinkedIn Community Guidelines can be found at: http://about.bankofamerica.com/en-us/social-media/linkedin-community-guidelines.html

NAICS: 52
NAICS Definition: Finance and Insurance
Employees: 17,432
Subsidiaries: 4
12-month incidents
0
Known data breaches
3
Attack type number
2

Compliance Badges Comparison

Security & Compliance Standards Overview

https://images.rankiteo.com/companyimages/wellsfargo.jpeg
Wells Fargo
ISO 27001
ISO 27001 certification not verified
Not verified
SOC2 Type 1
SOC2 Type 1 certification not verified
Not verified
SOC2 Type 2
SOC2 Type 2 certification not verified
Not verified
GDPR
GDPR certification not verified
Not verified
PCI DSS
PCI DSS certification not verified
Not verified
HIPAA
HIPAA certification not verified
Not verified
https://images.rankiteo.com/companyimages/bank-of-america-merrill-lynch.jpeg
Bank of America Merrill Lynch
ISO 27001
ISO 27001 certification not verified
Not verified
SOC2 Type 1
SOC2 Type 1 certification not verified
Not verified
SOC2 Type 2
SOC2 Type 2 certification not verified
Not verified
GDPR
GDPR certification not verified
Not verified
PCI DSS
PCI DSS certification not verified
Not verified
HIPAA
HIPAA certification not verified
Not verified
Compliance Summary
Wells Fargo
100%
Compliance Rate
0/4 Standards Verified
Bank of America Merrill Lynch
0%
Compliance Rate
0/4 Standards Verified

Benchmark & Cyber Underwriting Signals

Incidents vs Financial Services Industry Average (This Year)

No incidents recorded for Wells Fargo in 2025.

Incidents vs Financial Services Industry Average (This Year)

No incidents recorded for Bank of America Merrill Lynch in 2025.

Incident History — Wells Fargo (X = Date, Y = Severity)

Wells Fargo cyber incidents detection timeline including parent company and subsidiaries

Incident History — Bank of America Merrill Lynch (X = Date, Y = Severity)

Bank of America Merrill Lynch cyber incidents detection timeline including parent company and subsidiaries

Notable Incidents

Last 3 Security & Risk Events by Company

https://images.rankiteo.com/companyimages/wellsfargo.jpeg
Wells Fargo
Incidents

Date Detected: 5/2022
Type:Breach
Attack Vector: Unauthorized Access (Insider)
Blog: Blog

Date Detected: 12/2021
Type:Breach
Attack Vector: Email
Blog: Blog

Date Detected: 11/2019
Type:Breach
Attack Vector: Human Error (Email Misdelivery)
Blog: Blog
https://images.rankiteo.com/companyimages/bank-of-america-merrill-lynch.jpeg
Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Incidents

Date Detected: 2/2025
Type:Breach
Attack Vector: Inadvertent Disclosure
Blog: Blog

Date Detected: 10/2024
Type:Breach
Blog: Blog

Date Detected: 4/2024
Type:Breach
Attack Vector: Human Error (Email Misconfiguration)
Blog: Blog

FAQ

Wells Fargo company demonstrates a stronger AI Cybersecurity Score compared to Bank of America Merrill Lynch company, reflecting its advanced cybersecurity posture governance and monitoring frameworks.

Wells Fargo and Bank of America Merrill Lynch have experienced a similar number of publicly disclosed cyber incidents.

In the current year, Bank of America Merrill Lynch company has reported more cyber incidents than Wells Fargo company.

Neither Bank of America Merrill Lynch company nor Wells Fargo company has reported experiencing a ransomware attack publicly.

Both Bank of America Merrill Lynch company and Wells Fargo company have disclosed experiencing at least one data breach.

Neither Bank of America Merrill Lynch company nor Wells Fargo company has reported experiencing targeted cyberattacks publicly.

Neither Wells Fargo company nor Bank of America Merrill Lynch company has reported experiencing or disclosing vulnerabilities publicly.

Neither Wells Fargo nor Bank of America Merrill Lynch holds any compliance certifications.

Neither company holds any compliance certifications.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch company has more subsidiaries worldwide compared to Wells Fargo company.

Wells Fargo company employs more people globally than Bank of America Merrill Lynch company, reflecting its scale as a Financial Services.

Neither Wells Fargo nor Bank of America Merrill Lynch holds SOC 2 Type 1 certification.

Neither Wells Fargo nor Bank of America Merrill Lynch holds SOC 2 Type 2 certification.

Neither Wells Fargo nor Bank of America Merrill Lynch holds ISO 27001 certification.

Neither Wells Fargo nor Bank of America Merrill Lynch holds PCI DSS certification.

Neither Wells Fargo nor Bank of America Merrill Lynch holds HIPAA certification.

Neither Wells Fargo nor Bank of America Merrill Lynch holds GDPR certification.

Latest Global CVEs (Not Company-Specific)

Description

FreePBX Endpoint Manager is a module for managing telephony endpoints in FreePBX systems. Versions prior to 16.0.96 and 17.0.1 through 17.0.9 have a weak default password. By default, this is a 6 digit numeric value which can be brute forced. (This is the app_password parameter). Depending on local configuration, this password could be the extension, voicemail, user manager, DPMA or EPM phone admin password. This issue is fixed in versions 16.0.96 and 17.0.10.

Risk Information
cvss4
Base: 6.9
Severity: LOW
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:L/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
Description

Neuron is a PHP framework for creating and orchestrating AI Agents. In versions 2.8.11 and below, the MySQLWriteTool executes arbitrary SQL provided by the caller using PDO::prepare() + execute() without semantic restrictions. This is consistent with the name (“write tool”), but in an LLM/agent context it becomes a high-risk capability: prompt injection or indirect prompt manipulation can cause execution of destructive queries such as DROP TABLE, TRUNCATE, DELETE, ALTER, or privilege-related statements (subject to DB permissions). Deployments that expose an agent with MySQLWriteTool enabled to untrusted input and/or run the tool with a DB user that has broad privileges are impacted. This issue is fixed in version 2.8.12.

Risk Information
cvss3
Base: 9.4
Severity: LOW
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:H
Description

Neuron is a PHP framework for creating and orchestrating AI Agents. Versions 2.8.11 and below use MySQLSelectTool, which is vulnerable to Read-Only Bypass. MySQLSelectTool is intended to be a read-only SQL tool (e.g., for LLM agent querying, however, validation based on the first keyword (e.g., SELECT) and a forbidden-keyword list does not block file-writing constructs such as INTO OUTFILE / INTO DUMPFILE. As a result, an attacker who can influence the tool input (e.g., via prompt injection through a public agent endpoint) may write arbitrary files to the DB server if the MySQL/MariaDB account has the FILE privilege and server configuration permits writes to a useful location (e.g., a web-accessible directory). This issue is fixed in version 2.8.12.

Risk Information
cvss3
Base: 8.2
Severity: LOW
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:N
Description

Okta Java Management SDK facilitates interactions with the Okta management API. In versions 11.0.0 through 20.0.0, race conditions may arise from concurrent requests using the ApiClient class. This could cause a status code or response header from one request’s response to influence another request’s response. This issue is fixed in version 20.0.1.

Risk Information
cvss3
Base: 8.4
Severity: HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:L
Description

The Auth0 Next.js SDK is a library for implementing user authentication in Next.js applications. When using versions 4.11.0 through 4.11.2 and 4.12.0, simultaneous requests on the same client may result in improper lookups in the TokenRequestCache for the request results. This issue is fixed in versions 4.11.2 and 4.12.1.

Risk Information
cvss3
Base: 5.4
Severity: HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:N