CNet News reported that Playboy.com has been cracked and user's credit card information has been stolen. Here's more detail.
Playboy.com encouraged customers to contact their credit card companies to check for unauthorized charges. New York-based Playboy.com also said it reported the incident to law enforcement officials and hired a security expert to audit its computer systems and analyze the incident.
"Unfortunately, Playboy is only one of a number of high-profile companies who have been subjected to this kind of malicious hacking," Lux said in the e-mail.
Lux is right. Fraud continues to plague online stores, as much as or more than it does stores in the brick-and-mortar world. Web thieves who hack into Web stores to pilfer credit card numbers and then go on shopping sprees have led banks in some cases to charge higher fees to service credit card transactions on the Web.
The number of hacking incidents also undermines the public's trust in e-commerce, analysts have said.
Playboy.com learned of the breach after a person claiming access to its systems and customer information began e-mailing customers Sunday night. Although Playboy.com did not say when the intruder first got into the site, the hacker in the e-mail claimed to have had access since 1998.
News source: CNet News - Playboy says hacker stole customer info
