Ben Fox
(The Associated Press, Jan 19,2000)
Summary
Hackers managed to hacked into the credit card database of a health products supplier during the week of Jan 19,2000. The hacker pilfered the credit card numbers from CD Universe, a Web music seller. As a result, there was a massive cancellation of cards recalled by the credit card companies.
Just when the Internet retailing industry had achieved some success in squelching consumer fears of credit card number thefts, ensuring online shopping to be safe through encryption and security technologies, such an unfortunate incident occurred. This has greatly shaken the faith of shoppers on online shopping.
The credit card database was exposed because the person who designed the Web site left the files on an unsecured part of the site, which was meant to be hidden from the public view. A hacker had figured out the correct Web address to access the database.
