Data theft with tangible results

IF EVER there was a question whether crime - data theft in particular - paid, some clever hackers have just proved that it does.

Over the course of 4 months, someone sucked away the numbers of over 4.2 million credit and debit cards in Florida and New York state, through the Hannaford Bros. supermarket chain – almost 300 stores in total. The company’s computer network was hacked and by February 27th of this year, Hannaford was informed of "certain anomalies".

It took the chain a fortnight to fully secure the leak, during which consumers were kept in the dark. So all the while, Mr. and Mrs. John Doe were buying their groceries and swiping their cards, the data was being leeched away to some clever hacker’s computer.

What’s interesting is that, contrary to other cases of data theft, this particular case has some other numbers attached to it: the number of frauds that have already been committed through the use of the said card numbers – 1,800.

Yes. Over 1800 cases of fraud have been reported and traced back to the stolen card numbers. Those are the ones bright eyed and bushy tailed consumers have noticed, we can only imagine how many didn't.

Mastercard and Visa refused to comment on the matter, and their contract fine-print actually impedes further investigation as they do not divulge the establishment when a data breach occurs... well, they don’t until the federal government doesn’t come a-knockin’.

Hannaford is advising: “Customers should carefully review their financial institution and credit card statements, and immediately contact their credit card company or issuing bank with any questions or concerns about individual charges”.

We’d just cancel the damn cards and get new ones issued with different numbers, but Hannaford would never say that, lest they get charged for the bother...

We tried calling the US Secret Service (they have jurisdiction over this type of matter), but all we got was Mr. Ling’s dry cleaners.

L'Inq
AP