Do you shop at Hannaford supermarket? Posted byjocelynon 17 Mar, 2008 22:46
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4.2 Million Credit Card Numbers Stolen From Supermarket Chain
Monday, March 17, 2008
PORTLAND, Maine ? A security breach at an East Coast supermarket chain exposed 4.2 million credit and debit card numbers and led to 1,800 cases of fraud, the Hannaford Bros. grocery chain announced Monday.
The breach affected all of its 165 stores in the Northeast, 106 Sweetbay stores in Florida and a smaller number of independent groceries that sell Hannaford products.
Hannaford said credit and debit card numbers were stolen during the card authorization process and about 4.2 million unique account numbers were exposed.
The company is aware of about 1,800 cases of fraud reported so far relating to the breach.
No personal data such as names, addresses or telephone numbers were divulged ? just account numbers.
Hannaford became aware of the breach Feb. 27. Investigators later discovered that the data breach began on Dec. 7; it wasn\'t contained until March 10, said Carol Eleazer, Hannaford\'s vice president of marketing in Scarborough.
"We have taken aggressive steps to augment our network security capabilities," Hannaford president and CEO Ronald C. Hodge said in a statement released Monday. "Hannaford doesn\'t collect, know or keep any personally identifiable customer information from transactions."
The company urged its customers to monitor their credit and debit cards for unusual transactions and report any problems to authorities.
The U.S. Secret Service, whose duties include investigating electronic crimes such as data breaches, confirmed it\'s investigating but declined to comment on the scope of the crime.
"The company did contact us, and we are investigating," said agency spokesman Malcolm Wiley.
MasterCard, the second-biggest U.S. credit card association after Visa, issued a statement before Hannaford\'s disclosure: "Because this incident is the subject of an ongoing law enforcement investigation, we cannot disclose additional details regarding the incident or otherwise comment at this time."
Calls to Visa were not returned.
Mark Walker, an attorney for the Maine Bankers Association, said his organization sent an advisory to member banks Friday after learning of the breach. Only a few had reported suspicious activity involving the credit and debit cards they had issued customers, Walker said.
"I had expected there would be more than we\'ve heard of," Walker said. "But it\'s still too early for us to tell."
Bruce Spitzer, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Bankers Association, criticized the delay in public notification of the source of the breach.
"Visa and MasterCard have stipulated in their contracts with retailers that they will not divulge who the source is when a data breach occurs," Spitzer said. "We\'ve been engaged in a dialogue for a couple years now about changing this rule.... Without knowing who the retailer is that caused the breach, it\'s hard for banks to conduct a good investigation on behalf of their consumers. And it\'s a problem for consumers as well, because if they know which retailer is responsible, they can rule themselves out for being at risk if they don\'t shop at that retailer."
Paul Stephens, of the San Diego-based consumer advocacy organization Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, said the delay in disclosure "puts consumers in a difficult position because they have no way of knowing whether their accounts may have been impacted or not."
Eleazer defended Hannaford\'s actions.
"We moved with all deliberate speed to get out to customers with information that we could have confidence in," she said. "This is a complex undertaking."
"Visa and MasterCard have stipulated in their contracts with retailers that they will not divulge who the source is when a data breach occurs," Spitzer said. "We\'ve been engaged in a dialogue for a couple years now about changing this rule.... Without knowing who the retailer is that caused the breach, it\'s hard for banks to conduct a good investigation on behalf of their consumers. And it\'s a problem for consumers as well, because if they know which retailer is responsible, they can rule themselves out for being at risk if they don\'t shop at that retailer."
yep. this is pretty much the dumbest thing in the world. happened to lisa and i a couple years ago (thieves actually cloned our debit cards and had our pin numbers to make atm withdrawals), and the bank wouldn\'t tell us which retailer the breach was at. it took my own investigation online to find out that it was OfficeMax.
scary/shady business, but it\'s all protected, so it just ends up being an inconvenience more than anything else.
yea, I always found it funny that no one ever picked up on the utopian future of star trek is basically communism, and on top of that they started it in the midst of the cold war. :lol:
yea, I always found it funny that no one ever picked up on the utopian future of star trek is basically communism, and on top of that they started it in the midst of the cold war. :lol:
Actually, I believe that there are some inconsistencies. That or I don\'t know enough about star trek. In some series - DS9 - money has a very prominant role. Human characters routinely speak of credits. Also, there is mention of salary being saved up in TOS.
Furthermore, I always thought that stark trek communism was a more pure form - more marxist - than anything implemented so far.
i actually work for one of the largest consumer information database companies in the US, choice point. well, to be fair to me, i work for a branch of them that maintains a mortgage fraud database, so if you\'re considering using a particular appraiser, settlement company, loan officer, etc, then we\'ll have the info on them if they\'ve ever been involved in any funny business. actually, most of you wouldn\'t have access to this info, but the companies you\'ll get your loan through will have checked them out for you. anyway, two-ish years ago, there was a massive security breach at their headquarters in alpharetta, ga and as a result, there is now constant monitoring, education and procedures in place so that if i even get up to go to my supervisor\'s office to ask a quick question, i have to have everything on my desk locked away and the computer locked down, too. we don\'t deal with many account numbers at my office (though we certainly do see some pretty often) but some of the other branches know more about you than you\'d ever imagine!