Credit Cards Online Information

Malicious hackers used a bug in PDG Shopping Cart - a popular e-commerce software tool - to break in to a number of merchant Web sites and steal credit card numbers, according to the software's vendor.

Atlanta-based PDG Software said PDG Shopping Cart, its e-commerce transaction software used by many small to mid-sized merchant sites, had been compromised.

"On Monday, April 2, it was alerted to us that some unknown hackers had broken into some Web stores running PDG Shopping Cart," said PDG President David Snyder.

Snyder said PDG investigated and contacted all vendors with a software patch that same afternoon. But in an undisclosed number of cases, the damage had already been done.

"On Tuesday, April 3, we were notified that there might have been some credit card misappropriation from some of these sites, and as soon as we hear that we brought in the Atlanta office of the FBI, and turned over all of the information to them," Snyder said.

Snyder said he was unable to say exactly how many vendors or how much information might have been compromised.

The FBI's cybercrime division, the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC), posted an alert on the subject Monday April 9.

"We're a very proactive company, and we don't like to sit on things or hide things if there's any chance we can reach more of our customer base through whatever means," Snyder said. "That's why we told the FBI to put that notice on NIPC."

# posted by Medical Information : 5:30 AM