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US regional bank hacked

Thwarted hack exposes score

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Hackers infiltrated the systems of Commerce Bank and accessed the records of 20 customers, the US regional bank said today.

The attack by persons unknown was partially thwarted - but not before a database of 3,000 records was hacked into and the data of 20 exposed. Compromised data included personal information such as names, addresses, Social Security numbers, phone numbers and, in a few cases, Commerce Bank account numbers, the Columbia Business Journal reports.

Security staff shut down the attack and called in police to investigate after uncovering the breach a week ago. The FBI is investigating.

The method used in the attack is unclear, and something the bank will be keen that it stays unclear, to avoid the possibility of copycat attacks. There are many avenues of assault, of which one common tactic is to exploit web application vulnerabilities by using SQL injection attacksto access information of back-end databases.

Commerce Bank has apologised for the breach to customers affected by the attack and is offering to pay for two years' credit monitoring. Concerned customers can call +1 877 279 4046 for more info.

The Midwest bank operates 360 branches in Missouri, Illinois and Kansas and an online banking business. ®

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Latest Comments

2 Years of Nothing

The compensation banks aren't forced to give in cases like this is the main reason these attacks are successful in the first place.

If businesses that negligently store personal data on insecure systems (especially those that do so without permission from their customers) were forced to

1/compensate customers for the costs involved in restoring their credit scores should they be affected,

2/compensate them for any increases in interest rates they suffer due to bad credit,

3/forced to offer them the credit they would have got, at interest rates they would have qualified for, and

4/repay every bad loan taken out in their names.. because obviously this is where most of the damage occurs..

then you can be sure nothing will change and people will continue to be screwed over by them.

Real protection with real laws. Not crappy laws like they have in California that just force these arseholes to say

"We're sorry to tell you that your personal information is now in the possession of the Russian Mafia - but we'll pay for useless credit monitoring services to let you know exactly how badly you're life is going to get for a couple of years. Not that the nightmare will be over by then, we just need to make this token gesture or someone will pass some real legislation to protect people like you from people like us".

It's sort of like a business decides to store leaky gas cylinders next to your house without your permission, and their only liability is to let you know your house is probably going to be burnt to the ground, but don't worry because they'll let you know how often it happens over the next 2 years.

What could be fairer than that?

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@Ian

Pretty good. The local Commerce branch seems to have always had software problems in comparison to other banks they seem a little lost.

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Life imitates art.

A gift from XKCD - http://xkcd.com/327/

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