Credit Cards Exposed in Security Breach during Transactions for Park Passes

According to US' Maine Department of Conservation, there has been a computer hack, which possibly caused the disclosure of credit card details belonging to individuals who went online, while seeking to buy park passes that a vendor based in California supplied. Sfgate.com published this in news on March 24, 2011.

Says Spokesperson Jeanne Curran, the vendor, which deals with purchases of passes for state parking through the Internet, has informed that an attack using malicious software probably caused exposure of credit cards utilized for purchases between March 21, 2010 and December 22, 2010. According to her, 970 owners of credit cards residing in Maine have been notified about the security breach. Luckily, there has been no report from any customer about fraudulent charges. Sfgate.com published this.

Meanwhile, Maine authorities told residents that other than park passes, the problem disturbed no other permit, as also it left the PC operations of all other states unaffected. Stated Charlie Summers Secretary of State, who's the board chairman supervising the authorized website of the Maine state Maine.gov, the Maine.gov site was fully safe without getting hacked. Washingtonpost.com published this in news on March 24, 2011.

Said Curran, while people had been victimized, it was the vendor's responsibility for informing each of those credit card-owners who probably visited the website. However, immediately following the breach, it had been ensured that the site was blocked for visitors, while work was going on with a separate vendor so a more secured website could be established, she added. Wcsh6.com published this on March 24, 2011.

In the meantime, as the reconstruction of the online arrangement is going on, people can use personal income tax (IT) forms, the telephone or visit parks to purchase passes, stated the Wcsh6.com website.

Importantly, according to Thom Harnett, Assistant Attorney General, the vendor indicated to the Maine authorities that since hackers invaded many other servers that held credit card details, including numbers and dates of expiry, it was possible that the issue spread even beyond Maine. He added that the names of the cardholders were stored separately in a different server. Washingtonpost.com reported this.

Related article: Credit Union Warns of phishing E-Mail

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