Florida Bank Suffers Online Security Breach

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175977.html

By Brian McWilliams, Newsbytes
ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA, U.S.A.,
18 Apr 2002, 10:04 AM CST
 
A large commercial bank in Florida said Wednesday that "an Internet
hacker" penetrated the security of its systems earlier this month and
made off with a file containing 3,600 online-banking customer names
and addresses.

Officials of Republic Bank said the attacker managed to get past the
bank's security firewalls but did not access account balances or
transactions of its online banking customers.
 
According to Internet records, the server hosting Republic's online
bank, located at http://secure.republic.openbank.com , is operated by
Atlanta-based S1 Corp. [NASDAQ:SONE], a leading provider of electronic
finance services to banks, credit unions, insurance providers and
investment firms.

Chris Rogers, a spokesperson for S1, said the technology firm's
systems and applications were not involved in the security incident at
Republic.

"Nothing came in through us. This had nothing to do with S1," said
Rogers.

Republic Bank's main Web site at http://www.republicbankfl.com is
running Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS) version 4.0 and
is hosted by Advances.com of Ft. Lauderdale.

A spokesperson for Republic said the bank learned of the security
breach after the attacker contacted the bank two weeks ago. Republic
withheld notifying customers about the incident until Wednesday at the
request of the FBI, the representative said.

Republic spokesperson Harry Costello said he had no information about
why the attacker contacted the bank about the breach, or whether the
individual was cooperating with Republic.

Republic's customers who do not use online banking were unaffected by
the security breach, according to the company.

The bank has hired an independent team of security consultants to
review its security, according to a press release.

According to Costello, Republic has begun contacting affected
customers and will give them the option of changing their passwords
and other sign-on information.

Republic Bank originally partnered with S1 in 1996 to become the first
Florida-based bank to offer Internet banking to its customers,
according to a March press release.

Republic Bank is online at http://www.republicbankfl.com

S1 Corporation is at http://www.s1.com



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