October 27, 2016
Nets A/S, a European company that handles financial transactions, has recommended to Danish banks that they block and then replace over 100,000 payment cards.
Nets, which specializes in digital payments and monitors card transactions on behalf of many banks in the Nordic Europe region, says it detected fraudulent transactions that abused Danish-issued debit cards.
The company had issued a warning to Danish banks about 15,000 cards last month but has now updated that number to over 100,000
The company, which has collaborations with banks in Sweden, Estonia, Finland, and Norway, said that only Danish customers appear to be affected until now.
In a statement on its website, Nets said it detected fraudulent transactions from Danish debit cards in both Danish and foreign online stores.
The company said it tracked the possible source of the breach to a foreign internet business, which it declined to name. Nets suspects that this business may have inadvertently exposed the credit card details of its customers, or might have been hacked.
Nets said it successfully prevented some abuse attempts. The company is now calling on Danish banks to take further preventive measures, such as blocking the affected cards and issuing replacements for their owners.
“By the preventive replacement of cards that are suspected of being abused in the near future, banks can save hundreds of millions in losses,” Nets said.