ALICO CC LEAK NEWS WORSENS

Japan-based assurer Alico Japan, ultimately a subsidiary of New York-based AIG, said yesterday that the suspected leak of customer credit card details could have led to 2,200 cases of fraudulent use of customers’ card details for online purchases. An announcement at the weekend had received enquires from 1,000 customers on possible cases of credit card fraud. Alico Japan spokesman Kazuyuki Takahashi said that details on up to 130,000 contracts may have been leaked, up from a previously estimated 110,000. The leak, the details of which have not yet been revealed, is likely the largest ever credit card fraud in Japan. Although many reports have assumed that one or more disaffected or criminal employees were responsible, Mr Takahashi said that “at this point no involvement by any Alico Japan employee has been confirmed”. Japan Times reported that the insurer had begun questioning about 40 people who had access to the information that was leaked. Initially it was thought that only policies taken out between July 2002 and May 2008 where payment was by credit card and the application was made directly to Alico had been leaked, but Alico has discovered that policies taken out before July 2002, where subsequent to that date the method of payment was changed to credit card, had also been leaked. This brought to 130,000 the total number of policies of which payment details had been leaked.