Citi Credit Card Data Breached for 200,000 Customers

Citigroup said Thursday hackers acquired personal information on about 200,000 credit-card holders, the financial institution’s second announced breach this week.

The attack, first reported by the Financial Times, comes amid a host of cyber intrusions into well-known companies, including Google, Sony, EMC, Lockeheed Martin and L-3.

Citi said no birth dates, Social Security numbers or card security codes were accessed by the hackers last month. They got away with account numbers and e-mail addresses. The financial institution said it would provide new cards to affected customers.

Citi said it has “implemented enhanced procedures to prevent a recurrence of this type of event,” but declined to elaborate.

Meanwhile, federal prosecutors announced Tuesday that four individuals, three from Romania and one from Austria, were apprehended and charged in an ATM-skimming scheme in which they got away with $1.5 million from JPMorgan Chase and Citibank, a unit of Citigroup.

“One method the defendants and their co-conspirators allegedly used involved going into bank branches and surreptitiously replacing the bank’s teller PIN pads with identical-looking PIN pads equipped with technology that — unbeknownst to the banks and their customers — recorded the customer’s account-related information and corresponding PIN each time he or she used the compromised PIN pads,” federal authorities said.

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