SOURCE : THE NATIONAL

Abu Dhabi - Sep 05: An international investigation is under way to find hackers believed to have stolen information from financial servers in the UAE to make fraudulent credit and debit card purchases in the US.

The scheme came to light after a number of employees at the US Embassy – and a handful of other US citizens – had unauthorised purchases show up on their credit and debit cards in recent months, prompting the embassy to issue a warning on its website.

“To date, all of the reported fraudulent charges have been made from the United States,” the message said. “We are aware of no fraudulent transactions originating in the UAE.”

MasterCard is co-operating with law enforcement officials and banks to investigate the issue, Chris Monteiro, the head of the company’s worldwide communications, wrote in an e-mail.

Visa, when contacted, did not respond to questions or comment on the case.

However the manager of an anti-fraud division at a credit union in North Carolina, in the US, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Visa had warned that there had been “a network intrusion” in the UAE between February and August.

Visa told her that the intrusion had happened “at the processor level”, which she said suggested that computer hackers had penetrated the electronic records of organisations that acted as middlemen between merchants and credit card companies such as Visa and MasterCard.

These organisations, known as “processors” or “acquirers”, are sent credit and debit card information by local merchants. In turn, they process the information and send it on to credit card companies for billing.

“Visa is having a hard time figuring this problem out,” the credit union employee said.

The case has also prompted concerns that security measures designed to protect personal financial information may be too lax in the UAE.