One day after a hacker using the handle “Reckz0r” claims to have infiltrated 79 different banks and leaked information allegedly belonging to Visa and MasterCard customers, there are questions about whether a hack actually occurred.
According to a post yesterday on Pastebin, the hacker Reckz0r claimed first to have hacked into VISA and Mastercard and later to have attacked banks affiliated with the victims that were hacked.
“I penetrated over 79 large banks, I’ve been targeting these banks since 3 months [sic],” the hacker announced via Twitter Monday. But did Reckz0r actually hack anything?
According to a payment card industry source on Tuesday who declined to be named, the information posted online is old and nothing Reckz0r posted would’ve actually have been hosted at Mastercard or Visa. The leaked data included names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses. After contacting one of the cardholders, an IDG report from last night confirmed that some of the customers’ information was seven years out of date and that some credit card numbers were incorrect.
Reckz0r claims the “full” file of information checks in at over 50 GB. He says he opted to post an abbreviated version, reasoning that the file was too large. While the document appears to contain the first five digits of users’ credit cards, the users’ full credit card numbers, secret codes and expiration dates were censored by Reckz0r. Information in the document pertains to US residents and residents of Australia, Spain, Canada, Belgium and Turkey, among other countries. The source of the data is a mystery. It’s possible the leaked information could have belonged to an as yet undisclosed payment processor. Global Payments, a worldwide electronic payment processor, publicly acknowledged that it was breached and that both consumers and merchants may have been affected in an attack against the Atlanta-based company earlier this year.
This is the second time in as many weeks that the hacker known as Reckz0r has made headlines. Last week, after a trove of information on nearly 15,000 residents of a Tennessee town was leaked online by SpexSecurity, Reckz0r, alongside fellow hacker c0mrade, announced their departure from the hacking scene. That retirement appears to have been short lived.
