More than 8000 customers of the Commonwealth Bank (CBA) may have been affected by a credit card breach involving another unnamed bank merchant.
According to a CBA spokesperson, the bank contacted 8000 customers via SMS, email and letter to advise of the breach.
"The bank continuously monitors all credit card transactions to protect our customers from fraud and during this process we became aware of a potential credit card compromise through an Australian merchant acquired by another bank," the spokesperson said.
"The CBA immediately alerted the card schemes MasterCard and Visa to the compromise and also the bank involved.
"As the bank takes protection of customer data very seriously, we moved immediately to protect the accounts of our customers through this proactive approach. Customer cards are being reissued as a matter of priority."
The spokesperson added that in any instance where a CBA customer card had been compromised, the customer would be fully reimbursed and any fees refunded.
MasterCard Australasia director of security and risk, Joseph Vukasovic, said in a statement that it works proactively with financial institutions, the merchant community and the industry to deliver fraud prevention and security education programmes, including terminal security best practices, to merchant groups on an on-going basis.
“Cardholders are protected against unauthorised transactions on their accounts by MasterCard's Zero Liability policy so if cardholders have questions about their accounts or suspect they have been a victim of a fraudulent activity, they should immediately contact the financial institutions that issued their cards," said Vukasovic. "This number appears on the back of the cards."
He added that MasterCard was trying to combat fraud through a suite of security programs such as the ongoing roll out of Europay, MasterCard and Visa (EMV) chip cards, securing online transactions with its SecureCode technology, the use of fraud monitoring software by financial institutions, and a payment card industry (PCI) DSS merchant education program.
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