Card firm American Express, in a letter to the California Attorney General's Office (OAG), announced a total of 76,608 people in the state of California have had their card data compromised by Anonymous Ukraine earlier this year.
This last March, the Ukrainian outpost of the hacking organization known solely as Anonymous released a total of over 7 million records as part of a protest against financial firms which “enslave” people all over the globe. 3,255,663 of the records belonged to Visa cardholders, 1,778,749 were MasterCard records, 362,132 from Discover, and 668,279 records from American Express. Until now, American Express is the only firm to take steps in notifying its cardholder base.
"After the USA showed its true face when she unilaterally decides which of the peoples to live independently and who under the yoke of the Federal Reserve, we decided to show the world who is behind the future collapse of the American banking system," Anonymous Ukraine supporters wrote at the time.
After experts examined the data, it was found that it was outdated; leaving them to believe Anonymous Ukraine was not the original source, despite claims of responsibility. However, even with the data being outdated, AmEx feels it is relevant enough to start notifying cardholders. According to the letter sent to the California OAG, a total of more than 58,000 California residents will be notified via a mailed letter on the incident.
“AXP was informed by law enforcement that several large files containing personal information were posted on internet sites by claimed members of "Anonymous," a worldwide hacking collective. The source(s) of the posted data is/are not currently known. The posted records contained varying data elements, but AXP has identified, and is providing notice via mail to, 58,522 California residents whose names and corresponding AXP account numbers were involved," American Express’ letter stated.
The remaining 18,086 residents will not be notified immediately according to AmEx, as their names were not released by Anonymous Ukraine leaving them exempt from notification under California Civil Code s. 1798.29(e). However, AmEx plans on notifying the remaining cardholders once the 58,000+ are properly notified.
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