Barnes & Noble: Bugs Planted In Credit Card Readers
At 63 Stores Nationwide
Nation's Largest Bookseller Implores Customers To Check
Their Statements
October 24, 2012 7:41 PM
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – Barnes & Noble is warning its
customers to check their credit and debit card statements for unauthorized
transactions after discovering someone tampered with its card readers in 63
stores across the country, including several in the Tri-State Area.
Only one device was tampered with in each store,
affecting fewer than 1 percent of card readers in Barnes & Noble stores,
the company said in a news release on Wednesday.
The company disconnected all of the devices at its nearly
700 stores after detecting the tampering on Sept. 14.
The FBI asked Barnes & Noble not to disclose the
breach last month, for fear of compromising the investigation, WCBS 880′s Marla
Diamond reported.
The criminals apparently planted bugs in the devices to
get customers’ credit card and PIN numbers, Barnes & Noble said, calling
the tampering a “sophisticated criminal effort.”
The nation’s largest bookseller is working with federal
law enforcement authorities as well as banks, payment card brands and issuers
to identify accounts that may have been compromised.
Among the stores affected is the Barnes & Noble
located at 82nd Street and Broadway. Shoppers near that location said they are
always on the look-out for suspicious activity.
“I’m not that concerned because I watch my accounts and
there hasn’t been anything on it,” one shopper told Diamond outside the Upper
West Side store.
“I think that we live in an age of a major information
release and I don’t think that any of us are protected against it,” a concerned
shopper told Diamond.
Still, shoppers said there should be a stronger effort to
protect against these breaches.
“Credit card companies make an enormous amount of money
from people switching over to computerized money and it’s their responsibility
to figure out how to do it safely but they’re so profit-driven that they short
cut,” the woman said.
But some shoppers said this security breach will not
dissuade them from continuing to swipe the plastic.
“I have no other choice, this is my bookstore,” a woman
told Diamond.
“I think it’s just something that you have to be aware
of. Am I going to change the way I shop? No, it’s just another element of the
way life is,” another shopper added.
But with the breach having affected B&N stores across
the country, some customers said they still won’t use plastic at the bookstore
again.
“A credit card’s like inviting a forest fire to meet my
favorite tree,” customer Jack Farwick told CBS Chicago.
Susanna Song of WBBM-TV, Chicago, reported because the
company disconnected its PIN pads last month, any purchases since then should
not be affected. The company is having each one of its PIN pads tested.
But as a precaution, Barnes & Noble said debit card
users who shopped at affected stores should change their pin numbers.
B&N insists its customer database is secure.
The company also stressed that the breach involved only
purchases made in a store using one of the tampered devices and that
transactions on Barnes & Noble.com, Nook devices and apps were not
affected.
Great blog, this could be the best blog I ever visited this month. Never stop to write something useful dude!.
ReplyDeleteNew York accountants