14 DAY TRIAL // The First National Bank of Omaha has started reissuing debit cards for some of its customers after a local US company suffered a data breach.
Bank representatives have declined to name the company or the number of affected clients but have said they started procedures to recall and issue new cards for customers across seven states. These are: Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Texas.
Details about the data breach are kept secret, for now
The bank claims that its internal fraud monitoring system detected the incident, which touched the unnamed company's clients all across the US.
“The company affected, the card networks and investigators are still working to determine the extent of the exposure,” said Kevin Langin, First National spokesman to Omaha's The World-Herald.
Neither the FBI nor the Secret Service has issued public alerts regarding this incident yet. This can either mean that the company did not inform authorities or that law enforcement is keeping investigation details secret, for now.
Further investigations by local journalists have revealed that no other local Omaha banks were aware of the data breach.
According to bank officials, only users with debit cards had card details included in the undisclosed data breach.
Chip-and-PIN cards couldn't get here faster
Starting October 2015, US banks will be forced to start issuing new chip-and-PIN cards, like the ones used in Europe and Asia. This technology is more advanced compared to old swipe cards and includes extra security measures, making it easier to identify and prevent fraudulent transactions in the case of a data breach.
The First National Bank of Omaha is scheduled to release these new types of cards starting early next year.
In the meantime, to help educate US citizens, the FBI has also issued a public service announcement on the advantages and dangers of new chip-and-PIN (EMV) cards.