Bits from Bill
Network Solutions Hackers Monitored Credit Cards
Washington Post author Brian Kreb reported Friday that “Network Solutions Hack Compromises 573,000 Credit, Debit Accounts”.
“Hackers have broken into Web servers owned by domain registrar and hosting provider Network Solutions, planting rogue code that resulted in the compromise of more than 573,000 debit and credit card accounts over the past three months…
The payment data stolen was captured from transactions made between March 12, 2009 and June 8, 2009.”
I was surprised that within 3 minutes of mentioning the Post article on Twitter I was contacted by someone from Network Solutions. Their comments still didn’t really make me feel warm and fuzzy.
“At this point, we have no reports or other reasons to believe that any credit card account information has been misused. Under established practice, credit card issuing companies generally will not hold our merchants’ customers liable for any fraudulent purchases made using their credit card account numbers that are reported in a timely manner to the issuer.”
So, this means as long as you notice the invalid charge you won’t have to pay it. Contrary to popular belief, the credit card company doesn’t eat the charge, the merchant does. If someone purchases WinPatrol PLUS with an illegal credit card, I have to refund the money, not the credit card company.
Network Solutions has made a deal to provide one-year free monitoring of your credit card with TransUnion. Unfortunately, if you visit ConsumerAffairs.com you’ll see TransUnion doesn’t have one of the best reputations. Last year TransUnion settled in Pennslyvania in response to allegations TransUnion sold customer information.
What I find really scary is that this could happen to a company like Network Solutions. This is a company who has been an integral part of the internet backbone since 1985. Network Solutions hosts websites, controls domain names and originated the @ symbol to be used in Email addresses. If their eCommerce servers could be hacked what else could have been comprised?
Labels: credit cards, network solution, transunion
posted by Unknown | 11:14 AM
2 Comments:
Hi Bill,
You will be very interested in this new security card that has been developed in Australia.
It's called PassWindow,it uses pattern matching techniques.
Go to abc.net.au then click on The New Inventors.PassWindow was previewd 25th July 2009.It can be used for internet transactions and banking.Maybe this can prevent some of the fraud.
Regards,
Clint
I notice that in the statement Network Solutions shot over to you via Twitter, they only mention "credit cards." Not "debit cards." Wonder if the omission was intentional -- it used to and may well still be the case that when it comes to debit cards, no one eats fraudulent charges on behalf of the customer. They're just SOL for the full amount stolen.
Scary!! All concerned better brush up on their debit card policies!
Post a Comment
<< Home