Citigroup Hacked
Hot on the heels of all the recent hacking attacks against Sony comes the news that banking company Citigroup has had the names, email addresses, and account numbers of 200,000 customers stolen. Whilst Citigroup have stated that other sensitive customer information has not been lost (such as pin numbers, date of birth etc.) this is still a worrying situation.
Citigroup released the following statement:
“During routine monitoring, we recently discovered unauthorized access to Citi’s Account Online. A limited number – roughly one percent – of Citi bankcard customers’ account information (such as name, account number and contact information including email address) was viewed. The customer’s social security number, date of birth, card expiration date and card security code (CVV) were not compromised. We are contacting customers whose information was impacted. Citi has implemented enhanced procedures to prevent a recurrence of this type of event. For the security of these customers, we are not disclosing further details.”
While I am sure that Citigroup 'implementing enhanced procedures' after the fact will come of little reassurance to those affected, at least they have now done something - the question remains as to whether anyone can ever be sure that there is enough security. Until there is a true penalty for these companies for losing customers data we can never be sure how hard they are actually trying.
If you are one of the people affected by this, keep an eye on all your transactions, and be aware that communications seemingly from Citigroup may in fact be phishing scams coming from the hackers.