Citigroup hack was worse than initially stated: 360,000 accounts

Citigroup, the US giant bank corporation has told clients that around 360,000 credit cards were compromised by a hacking attack last month, this is twice the number that was originally stated.

Citigroup said late last night that the security hack has hit 360,083 North American Citi branded credit cards, after earlier saying that the attack impacted around 210,000 credit card customer accounts.

The banking group issued the following statement to customers “Citi has implemented enhanced procedures to prevent a recurrence of this type of event. We have also notified law enforcement and government officials, We continue to monitor customer service and communication channels and take every necessary action to ensure our customers are cared for.”

They have not issued details of the security breach but they are saying that an ongoing investigation is still in progress. US authorities have not been impressed with Citigroups handling of the breach as they did not inform their customer base until almost a month after it happened.

Citi have since replaced 217,657 credit cards to stop theft. They are one of the world's largest providers of credit cards with 21 million accounts. They are owed $77 billion in North America alone, according to the 2010 annual report.

This announcement came just as the CIA announced that they were hacked by Lulzsec – a hacking organisation who have targeted many high profile organisations such as Nintendo, Sony and the US Senate. They even hacked an Infragard company who work with the FBI.

Kitguru says: The hackers are out en force in recent months, is anything secure?

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