May 22, 2009
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News: Aspire Credit Card Embarrassment
An Aspire Visa credit cardholder accidently found herself in the midst of a more than 100 different consumers’ credit card statements. According to Fortify, CompuCredit, an Atlanta based firm that manages the Aspire card, conducted poor code auditing during the software developing stage which allowed the cardholder access to the accounts. The Aspire credit card customer, Constance Wilson, said she logged on to pay her bill and was able to view 120 Indiana residents’ account statements and 31 statements from individual’s accounts in other states. Ms Wilson said it was very disturbing knowing that if she had access to these accounts someone else might have access to her account. When Ms. Wilson discovered the problem, she immediately notified CompuCredit. The company’s representative failed to take the woman seriously by saying it was virtually impossible for such an occurrence which only upset her even more. After being blown off by the company, the woman notified WRTV‘s 'Called 6', to action, an ABC News affiliate in Indianapolis about the incident.
Richard Kirk, Fortify’s European Director says the error was most likely the result of several contributing factors to “create a rare, but repeatable situation.” Mr. Kirk further stated that the error might have been avoided had CompuCredit conducted a thorough code audit during the program development stage. On a positive note, Ms. Wilson was only able to view the credit card statements and was unable to do anything else. However, Mr. Kirk explained this type of error could potentially allow an individual access to other areas that would compromise customer’s credit card information.
After the WRTV ‘Called 6’ team contacted CompuCredit, the company immediately shut down access to all credit card accounts online. Meanwhile, Fortify, the company that developed the software for CompuCredit has assigned their software development team to task of looking into why the error occurred and take measures to assure it does not happen again. As for Ms. Wilson, she must be commended on her swift, prudent, and honest action.