Extracted from The Strait
Times
Singaporeans are among victims of the global heist this
month
By Edna Koh
IF YOU notice something dodgy in your credit card bill, you'd
better phone your bank straight away.
You may be a victim of the largest global hacking heist to take
place in recent years.
About eight million Visa, Mastercard and other card-holders around
the world, including Singapore, had their details stolen by a
hacker earlier this month - although the number affected here is
believed to be tiny.
News of the hacker attack emerged only on Tuesday.
The computer criminal - who remains at large - breached the
security of an American-based company that processes payments, but
it is not known if he was an insider job or someone from outside or
even overseas.
Nor was it immediately clear if the massive credit card scam
targeted victims who shopped over the Internet, or those who used
their credit cards for mail order or phone purchases.
In Singapore, Visa cardholders will be relieved to know that if
their cards were used to make fraudulent purchases, they will not
be liable for them. American Express said none of its customers
here was affected, but MasterCard could not confirm the
zero-liability clause.
A spokesman for market leader Visa - which notified banks here of
the security breach last week - said the number of potentially
affected accounts in the Asia-Pacific region was 'miniscule' and
particularly so in Singapore.
MasterCard declined to comment on numbers.
Even though not many Singaporeans are said to be affected, four of
the six banks who responded to queries by The Straits Times said
some of their cardholders had been affected, although they did not
give specific figures.
Among them are United Overseas Bank, the largest card issuer here
with more than 780,000 cards, OCBC Bank and Maybank.
Although Maybank's card base is relatively small here - something
over 100,000 cards - it issues the eCard, which is targeted at the
Internet savvy.
A DBS Bank spokesman said that in recent days some customers had
approached the bank to cancel their credit cards and to have new
ones issued. 'This may have been because of the hacking
incident.'
When informed about the breach, UOB and Maybank said they informed
affected customers immediately, and blocked the cards.
Asked what recourse Singaporeans have when their card details are
wrongfully accessed, the Monetary Authority of Singapore said: 'In
an incident of this nature, banks would be expected to take
appropriate actions to protect their affected customers and block
exploitation of the compromised cards.'
Visa and MasterCard said that worldwide 3.4 million and 2.2 million
of their card accounts were affected respectively. But American
Express and Discover Financial Services were not spared.
