Malware to blame in supermarket data breach
It turns out malware somehow found its way onto a Maine-based supermarket chain’s servers, which led to the security breach announced earlier this month compromising up to 4.2 million credit cards.
Citing a letter the Hannaford grocer sent to Massachusetts regulators, The Boston Globe on Friday reported that the malicious software intercepted data from customers as they paid with plastic at checkout counters and sent data overseas.
Hannaford is one of the few enormous companies based in Maine (owned by a Belgian group) and its security problems are horrendous. There was a time in 2001 and 2002 when it was at the leading edge of technological integration and had numerous articles in CTO magazines and now to have sunken so low and to have allowed such an enormous breach of data that will cost card issuers (who have to absorb the fraudulently spent funds), card holders (who have to check their histories, get their cards reissued, deal with their banks for refunds, etc), credit card issuers (can you even begin to contemplate how much money will be needed to fund the customer support infrastructure and personnel to deal with customers affected? And that’s not even to mention the physical cost of the production of all of these new, physical cards). This is a huge loss and may have a significant impact on our economy.
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