The N&O ran a front-page article yesterday detailing how numerous banks have recently reissued debit cards as a result of a security breach. It seems that hackers may have compromised the security of OfficeMax, according to the article. OfficeMax denies this.
What makes this story notable is that I found out about it a day earlier as a result of the local tech crowd. Folks on the Triangle InternetWorkers mailing list mentioned the reissued cards, providing links to additional information on the breach. I knew all about this well before the paper mentioned it to me.
The article did have news I didn’t get online, like the name of the “national retailer” involved, but other than that it didn’t provide me anything I didn’t get online somewhere else. It just goes to show how quickly Internet-based (and citizen-journalism based) news sources are outpacing the traditional news sources (a.k.a., the “mainstream media”).
Update: here’s some more detail coverage of recent ATM fraud cases.
Every time I read stories like this, it makes me realize just how absurdly vulnerable our banking system truly is. No wonder banks choose to pay ransom to the hackers to sweep incidents under the rug: if people found out how fragile things really are, they would totally freak out. It would cause a rush on banks.
It’s one big house of cards, so to speak.