Security breach impacts Commerce Bank credit, debit cards

[Erica Absetz <eabsetz () opensecurityfoundation org>]

http://www.the-standard.org/news/security-breach-impacts-commerce-bank-credit-debit-cards/article_812ff4de-853a-11e2-85ba-001a4bcf6878.html

In February there was a point-of-sale breach on card security and some
members of Commerce Bank were affected, according to a Commerce Bank
official at Missouri State’s branch.

Nichole Goddard, Springfield region’s director of retail at Commerce
Bank, said that Visa notified the bank that a retail business — which
remained undisclosed to Commerce — had issues on their side of credit
card security that caused the reissuing of debit and credit cards for
Commerce Bank users.

Goddard said she didn’t know how many cards had been affected by the
breach and reissued.

There are different types of breaches — Visa, bank and point-of-sale,
or, as she refers to it, retail, Goddard said.

The breach in February was a retail breach where the fault was with a
business and not with the bank or Visa, Goddard said.

Shelby Spiwak, a sophomore cell and molecular biology major, was one
of the students who was reissued a card recently from Commerce Bank,
but she said she was unaware of the reason for the reissue.

“I got a call saying my card had been compromised. I didn’t lose any
money, and I was issued a new card. That was it,” she said.

Spiwak said she was concerned that maybe the compromise was a result
of a security breach on the part of the university, since other
student friends she knew were compromised as well, but at different
banks.

However, Goddard said that this reissuance occurred because of a
retail breach and that anyone who purchased anything from this
business, or its affiliates, was reissued a card, not because someone
was stealing money from them, but because there was the potential that
it could happen.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, credit card fraud is a
common occurrence and has many techniques, such as application fraud,
intercept fraud, lost and stolen credit cards, fake and doctored
cards, site cloning and false merchant sites, triangulation and credit
card generators, just to name a few.

With credit card theft being a common occurrence, Goddard said that it
is important to find a bank that monitors activity on your account
24/7.

She also said that signing up for online banking and mobile banking
can help students monitor their accounts and catch suspicious behavior
sooner.

Robert Siciliano, certified identity theft risk management specialist
and McAfee consultant, said in an ABC News report that there are other
ways to prevent or soften the blow of such attacks on your credit.

“Humans steal, computers don’t,” Siciliano said. “When you go
shopping, you physically hand your card to another person. When you
shop online, you have that card information protected, but only if you
shop at a secure site.”

It’s important that when you shop online, you ensure that the websites
you visit are secure, he said.

“That means that in the address bar where it says ‘http’ it should say
‘https’ — that means it’s a secure encrypted site,” Siciliano said.

If you have noticed suspicious activity on your account or feel like
your card has been compromised, Goddard says to contact your bank
immediately.
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