Finland: Hackers Get Data on 10s of Thousands of Payment Cards

[Rebecca Chickering <rchickering () gmail com>]

http://www.yle.fi/uutiset/news/2010/02/hackers_get_data_on_10s_of_thousands_of_payment_cards_1464115.html

Helsinki police are investigating a computer system intrusion that
gave hackers access to information about tens of thousands of
different types of credit and bank cards. So far, the information for
only a few cards has been exploited by the criminals.

Altogether, the hackers accessed the numbers of over 100,000 payment
cards from the poorly secured system of a Helsinki business. Of those,
about 10,000 also included all card data. Since the system break-in
the business has replaced its system.

Police have declined to identify the business or what sector it operates in.

Hackers accessed the old system on several different occasions in January.

"Card information covering several years was stored on a server. The
security breach, which originated abroad, targeted this server and
they were able to download large amounts of data," says Inspector
Jukkapekka Risu.

"The data accessed is about all types of cards. The cards themselves
were not compromised, but information about transactions in which the
cards were used came into the hands of the hackers because of
deficiencies in the storage system," explains Henry Kylänlahti of the
card payment company Luottokunta.
[..]
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