December 02, 2009
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Restaurants Sue Radiant and Computer World, Pt.4
Hung out to dry.According to court documents, in April 2007 Visa, the giant credit card network, warned Radiant Systems and Computer World that the Aloha POS system was non-compliant because the system retained customers' debit and credit card information. Furthermore, Visa released a bulletin in November 2006 that the most common avenue that hackers were infiltrating systems to steal debit and credit card information was through "poorly configured or unpatched remote access software" and default or common password. The suit charges Radiant Systems and Computer World of violating both of these standards even after they had been warned of the weakness.
Keith Bond, owner of Mel's Diner in Broussard, Louisiana, said he purchased his Aloha system for $20,000 and installed it around late November 2007, a year after Visa had warned Computer World and Radiant Systems. At that time, the restaurant was using a dial-up connection for debit and credit card payment processing. Computer World insisted that the system needed to be connected to the internet for faster debit and credit card transaction processing. A few months later, the restaurant complained to Computer World telling them that the computer mouse was moving on its own and employees could not control it. The restaurant was told to disconnect from the internet and the next day Computer World replaced the hard drive. Bond was never informed that anyone had potentially hacked into the system.
In May 2008, Bond was notified by Visa and MasterCard that his system had been breached and forced him to hire a forensic team to investigate the breach. It cost him $19,000. After the investigation showed that the Aloha POS system was non-compliant, Bond was fined $5,000 by Visa and $100,000 by MasterCard. MasterCard has since waived the fine. The credit card thieves racked up over $30,000 of fraudulent charges of which Bond has had to pay $20,000. All of the plaintiffs in the case have suffered similar losses. Charles Hoff, General Counsel for the Georgia Restaurant Association said the group took action only after Radiant Systems refused to accept responsibility for the breaches. Bond says Radiant basically “hung us out to dry.”