Fergie's Tech Blog

Hackers Break Into UAE Credit Network to Fund U.S. Purchases

Hugh Naylor writes in TheNational.ae:

An international investigation is under way to find hackers believed to have stolen information from financial servers in the UAE to make fraudulent credit and debit card purchases in the US.

The scheme came to light after a number of employees at the US Embassy – and a handful of other US citizens – had unauthorised purchases show up on their credit and debit cards in recent months, prompting the embassy to issue a warning on its website.

"To date, all of the reported fraudulent charges have been made from the United States," the message said. "We are aware of no fraudulent transactions originating in the UAE."

MasterCard is co-operating with law enforcement officials and banks to investigate the issue, Chris Monteiro, the head of the company’s worldwide communications, wrote in an e-mail.

Visa, when contacted, did not respond to questions or comment on the case.

posted by Fergie @ 9/04/2008 01:51:00 PM