Did Cryptocurrency Pirates Hack My Debit Card Through Click2Gov?

SAN ANGELO, TX -- I received a text at 4:58 a.m. Wednesday morning from my financial institution’s fraud center asking if I had made a payment to ITunes and to reply NO if the charge was fraudulent.

I hadn’t made the payment and I haven’t purchased anything from itunes in years, so I replied NO to the text.  The system immediately replied back that my debit card was now blocked and I needed to call them or go to the bank.  

I went to Texas State Bank on Sherwood Way Wednesday morning and told them about my predicament.  The nice young lady was on the phone with the fraud center herself. She told me I was the fifth person Wednesday morning she had talked to whose card had been hacked.  

The day before the City of San Angelo suspended credit card payments for water billing, I paid my residential water bill with my debit card online.  

As we reported earlier, cryptocurrency pirates might be to blame for the data security breach.

According to statescoop.com, hackers using cryptocurrency mining software are to blame for the breaches of dozens of cities who use Click2Gov to process online credit card payments.  And that Click2Gov has known about the breach for at least a year with dozens of cities affected.

Cryptocurrency is a complex online virtual currency system.

“But possibly exposing residents' personal information is not the only headache Click2Gov customers have experienced. After discovering a breach on June 6, (the City of Wellington, FL’s) chief information officer, William Silliman, told the village’s leaders the incident actually began as an attempt by hackers to surreptitiously install cryptocurrency-mining software on municipal computers, a tactic called cryptojacking that has grown in popularity among hackers in recent months. The mining operation morphed into an effort to steal credit card numbers, and ultimately Wellington concluded that payments for water bills between July 2017 and February 2018 may have been compromised.”

Researchers say that as many as 6,000 installations of the Click2Gov software can be linked to governments around the country that are still likely vulnerable to cyberattacks.  Apparently, that includes the City of San Angelo.

My bank cancelled my debit card and issued me a new one with a new number within minutes and that was that.  

I highly suggest anyone who used a debit or credit card to pay their water bill with COSA using Click2Gov contact their financial institution immediately and check to make sure pirates haven’t absconded with their personal information.