Payment gateway breach affected 1.7 million cardholders

Slim CD, a payment gateway headquartered in Coral Springs, Fla., has been hit with a data breach that compromised card and personal information on nearly 1.7 million consumers. The breach was discovered in June, but an investigation revealed that cyber crooks gained access to Sim CD's computers in August 2023, according to a public notice.

Apparently, the crooks only took advantage of the breach on June 14, 2024 and June 15, 2024, the company stated.

"On or about June 15, 2024, Slim CD became aware of suspicious activity in its computer environment," the company wrote in its notice. "Upon learning of the activity, Slim CD launched an investigation to determine the full nature and scope of the activity. Slim CD engaged, through counsel, a third-party specialist to investigate the incident.

"The investigation identified unauthorized system access between August 17, 2023, and June 15, 2024. That access may have enabled an unauthorized actor to view or obtain certain credit card information between June 14, 2024, and June 15, 2024. Slim CD reviewed the accessible credit card information to identify the potentially affected cardholders so that it could notify those individuals."

The company said its review of the breach determined that information that was potentially obtained included customer names, addresses, credit card numbers and card expiration dates. "Slim CD takes the confidentiality of privacy and security of information in its possession very seriously," the company stated, adding that it took prompt action once the breach was identified.

Action steps, the company noted, included adding safeguards, reporting the breach to state and federal authorities, and providing notices to affected individuals.

Slim CD encouraged individuals who may have been affected to remain vigilant against identity thefts and fraud by reviewing their account statements, monitoring free credit reports and placing extended "fraud alerts" on their credit files.

It's been a big year for data breaches

This year has been a big one for data breaches. AT&T was hit with two data breaches. In March, a data broker dumped online a full cache of 73 million customer records, according to published reports. Then in July cybercriminals stole the phone numbers and call records of 110 million people, representing virtually all of AT&T's customers.

According to at least one published report the telecom giant paid the July hackers $300,000 to delete the stolen data and provide video demonstrating proof the data was indeed deleted.

Also in July, Evolve Bank, which provides banking-as-a-service to financial technology firms, suffered a breach that resulted in the theft of information on more 7.6 million consumers.

Meanwhile, a series of data thefts from the cloud giant Snowflake included 560 million records from Ticketmaster, 79 million records from Advance Auto Parts, and unverified numbers of records from retailer Neiman Marcus and Santander Bank.

And in August, National Public Data, a company that specializes in providing background checks, suffered a massive breach involving Social Security numbers and other personal data. According to reporting by Bloomberg Law 2.9 billion records were stolen from NPB, including names, addresses, and Social Security numbers dating back at least three decades.

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