[Dataloss] 10,000 accounts "hijacked"

[Henry Brown]

 From Stockholm Sweden

http://www.thelocal.se/7245/20070509/

Fraudsters hijack SEB credit cards

Credit and debit card numbers belonging to at least 10,000 SEB customers 
could have been hijacked by fraudsters, the bank has admitted.

"Other banks are hit by this too," bank spokeswoman Kerstin Ottosson said.

Eurocard announced on Tuesday that 1,000 customers were hit by a similar 
fraud attempt.

SEB received the first indications that something was amiss about ten 
days ago. The bank says that hackers broke into a national computer 
system handling card payments for shops, hotels and other retailers.

Ottosson said that card information should never be stored by payment 
systems, but said in this case it had been.

"That's a criminal act, pure and simple," she said.

The card numbers allowed the frausters to buy goods over the internet 
and to forge new cards.

"We've seen customers already hit by such thefts. A normal customer 
can't protect themselves against this. But our customers will not lose 
out financially," she said.

All SEB customers whose card numbers might have come into the wrong 
hands will receive a letter from the bank asking them to block the card 
and order a new one.