Adobe Hackers abduct credit card details of 3 million customers

The discovery of a system invasion reveals the theft of credit card data and source codes.

According to Brad Arkin, chief security officer at Adobe, customer identifications and encrypted passwords were stolen by hackers through “sophisticated attacks”.

He indicated that the incident is being dealt with by law enforcement and other security partners, that card numbers remain encrypted and that customers are being notified, and said that Adobe: “deeply regret[s] that this incident occurred.”

This is every e-commerce merchant’s nightmare but a risk nevertheless, given the ever increasing complexity of hacking tools and techniques but according to the 5th Annual LexisNexis True Cost of Fraud(SM) study, published last month, E-merchants who do not want to invest in fraud prevention have a 0.74% fraud rate compared to those who spend money on fraud prevention and have a rate of 0.39%.

While we cannot make assumptions about the level of security maintained by Adobe, this is an important reminder to all merchants that the need for PCI Compliance is vital and that the consequences of security compromise can be dire.

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