There is more than one way to steal credit card information

Hundreds of Anchorage residents may have been victims of credit card theft, a breach of sorts. Police have tracked the point of entry to a family owned restaurant, Little Italy. The Point of Sale machines were actually hacked so that instead of trying to intercept the encrypted credit and debit card data, they received it as the cards were being swiped.

The card data was likely sold to third parties as fake cards were created and used on the East Coast. Thousands of dollars were spent. Having tracked down the method used, local police and federal law enforcement are continuing their investigation but the POS machines and transmissions are once again secured.

This demonstrates the value of getting customers to report these crimes to the bank, and either the bank or customer in reporting them to the police. This is the only way a common point will be found involving two or more institutions with claims.