HSBC Turkey hacked for credit card information

ANKARA – Anadolu Agency

A man walks past a HSBC bank branch in the City of London November 12, 2014. HSBC Turkey identified the attack last week through its internal controls.

International bank HSBC said on Nov. 13 that its operations in Turkey had been hacked and the personal data of some 2.7 million customers’ credit cards had been compromised, while emphasizing that there is no financial risk for the clients.

HSBC Turkey identified the attack last week through its internal controls.

“We would like to inform you that HSBC recently identified and stopped a cyber-attack on our credit card and debit card systems in Turkey,” the statement said. “On identifying the incident, we took immediate action to safeguard our customers. We have launched an ongoing investigation in cooperation with the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency of Turkey and other relevant authorities. All card operations of HSBC Turkey are now functioning normally.”

The information compromised consisted of card numbers and linked account numbers, card expiry dates and card holders’ names, the bank said.

There is no evidence that any of its customers’ other financial information or personal information was compromised.

The bank stated that its customers may continue to perform all banking transactions as usual.
“As soon as we could, we established the facts and safeguarded the interests of our customers. We apologize to our customers for this incident,” the statement read.

“We are using the strength of HSBC Group’s global network to address this incident, and we have implemented enhanced security measures to improve the security of our information systems and card transactions,” it added.

The bank has nearly 3 million customers in Turkey with 330 branches, according to its website.