April 4, 2006 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- According to a Tuesday report by CNet News.com (news.com), online payment processing firm Authorize.Net was hit over the weekend with attempts to charge millions of dollars to stolen credit and debit cards.
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Three Web hosting firms told CNet that more than 3,000 suspicious transactions were submitted between their three merchant accounts, all of which use Authorize.Net for online billing. Most of the charges were for $500 or $700, and were billed to Visa, MasterCard and American Express cards belonging to Americans.
CNet says it contacted Defender Technologies, Vortech and Viper Logic, each of which saw roughly $1 million in charges put through its account.
Authorize.Net says the charges were put through its billing platform through its merchants, including the three Web hosts that spoke to CNet and probably others. The hosts discovered the fraudulent transactions through email alerts sent by Authorize.Net after each transaction.
Each of the transactions reportedly included a credit card number, expiration date, name and address. The hosting companies have voided all the transactions and fielded calls from confused and sometimes angry credit card holders.
It is unclear from where the fraudulent email addresses were obtained. However, Authorize.Net is adamant that no security breach occured at its level of the operations.
