Forcht Bank disabled 8,500 customer debit cards this week after learning they could have potentially been hacked into by persons creating duplicate cards.
Eddie Woodruff, chief operations officer for the bank, confirmed that 8,500 of the bank’s roughly 22,000 total debit cards had been deactivated, but the move was primarily a precaution.
“Right now, none of our customers have reported any fraudulent activity on the cards,” Woodruff said. “We’re just trying to take every precaution.”
The cards were comprised when a retail merchant’s computer system was hacked, Woodruff said. The breach affected customers of multiple banks whose cards are processed by the STAR Debit and ATM Network.
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Woodruff said other banks were affected by the problem, but First Data Corporation, which operates the STAR Debit and ATM Network, would not comment on how many were affected.
The STAR system is used by 2 million ATM and retail locations across the country, according to its Web site.
Read more in The Times-Tribune
Correction: the headline for this item is incorrect, although I am leaving it as it originally appeared at the url cited above. In fact, the STAR network was not breached — it was Heartland Payment Systems that was breached, and First Data notified its clients before Heartland announced the breach, leading to confusion as to who had the breach.