Hackers steal nearly 1.7 million credit card numbers in breach

It seems like there’s a major new data breach occurring every few weeks now. Personal emails, phone numbers, and addresses are among the most common data affected by these breaches. But it’s much more concerning when bank account numbers or credit card information getting into the wrong hands.

And one such serious data breach has just been disclosed by Slim CD, a payment gateway provider.

Nearly 1.7 million credit card accounts – including the cardholder’s name and address, as well as the card’s expiration date – were exposed during a 10 month-long data breach at Slim CD.

Millions affected by breach of sensitive financial data

According to the incident notice recently filed by the company, Slim CD became aware of suspicious activity on its computer systems around June 15, 2024. The company launched an investigation and found that the issue began nearly one year earlier. It says that unauthorized individuals had system access between August 17, 2023 and June 15, 2024.

In a separate filing with the Maine Attorney General as noticed by SecurityWeek, Slim CD disclosed that 1,693,000 people were affected by the data breach.

Mashable notes that this breach is not contained to the state of Maine. Of the nearly 1.7 million people affected, Slim CD says only 797 of those are Maine residents.

According to Slim CD, the company has started to notify affected individuals of the breach.

What should you do if you were affected?

Being that this breach explicitly concerns financial information, affected parties should remain diligent and monitor their credit report as well as keep an eye on their credit card statements for potentially unauthorized purchases.

A free annual credit report can be obtained at AnnualCreditReport.com. A free one-year fraud alert can also be placed on your credit file, which will alert businesses and require them to take additional steps to verify your identity before making a purchase.