A simple Google search resulted in 19,000 records of credit card details being displayed as fraudsters put them online by mistake.
The information included names, addresses and card details was accessible via Google when a criminal gang put them on a public server, making the information available on the internet, in error. The gang’s intention was to sell the collected information.
The site was closed down in Feb 2009 but some details could be viewed for longer.
A UK payments association spokesperson, Apacs, said, "We are aware that certain sites host and post card details. As soon as we are aware we start the process to take them down immediately and flags are put on accounts to monitor for unusual activity."
"In this case the site was closed immediately with the normal process but you could still see some details from a cached page on Google. Again, as soon as we were aware of this we had it closed down immediately."
The number of people known to have been effected by fraud as a result is unknown and how many of the cards were UK ones is also unknown.
The Apacs spokesperson added, "We advise all bank customers to check their statements regularly, keep on top of their finances and make sure they flag up anything unusual to their bank straight away."
A spokesperson for Google wasn’t able to comment on specific cases but said, "Please keep in mind that search engines are a reflection of the content and information that is available on the internet. Search engines such as Google do not own this content, and do not have the ability to remove content directly from the internet."
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Fraudsters publish credit card details online
Mon, 30 Mar 2009
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