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FBI investigates a case of cyber-extortion
Posted on 15 Dec 2000 at 15:42
The FBI is investigating a case of online extortion after hackers went ahead and published credit card details on the Internet after a demand for money wasn't met.
The company involved, the Los Angeles-based Creditcards.com, manages online credit card transactions on behalf of other companies. It seems more than 55,000 of its credit card numbers were obtained, with over 20,000 published on a Web site that has since been taken down by the FBI.
USA Today reports that Creditcards.com was first contacted by hackers - believed to be from Russia - about three months ago. Basically, if the company didn't pay a sum of money, it faced the threat of its data being publicly compromised. The company, however, adopted a policy to neither cooperate with the hackers nor pay any extortion money.
Author: Alun Williams
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