CheckFree customers intercepted by hackers
CheckFree, an online billing outfit, was recently hit with an attack that intercepted customer transactions and installed malware.
In a letter to customers, CheckFree said customers that paid their bills for an almost 10-hour window may have been intercepted. These customers--assuming they hit certain conditions--may have had malware installed on their computers.
I use CheckFree to pay a few bills and got the following email:
We take great care to keep your personal information secure. As part of these ongoing efforts, we are notifying you that the computer you use for online bill payment may be infected with malicious software that puts the security of your computer's contents at risk. This letter will help you determine if your computer is actually infected and advise you how to fix the problem and protect yourself against future risk.
The malicious software affects some but not all customers who accessed online bill payment on Tuesday, December 2, 2008. For a limited period of time, some customers were redirected from the authentic bill payment service to another site that may have installed malicious software. Your computer may be infected if all of the following are true:
* You attempted to access online bill payment between 12:30 a.m. and 10:10 a.m. Eastern time (GMT -5) on Tuesday, December 2, 2008, and * You were using a computer with the Windows operating system, and * You reached a blank screen rather than the usual bill payment screen when you attempted to navigate to online bill payment, and * After reaching the blank screen, your computer's virus protection program did not tell you via pop-up or other messaging that malicious software was detected and quarantined.
If all four of the conditions above are true, your computer may be infected. We have arranged with McAfee, the world's largest dedicated security technology company, to provide you with a complimentary copy of its VirusScan Plus software which, when installed, will detect, block and rmove any malicious software from your computer hard drive.
CheckFree apologized for the inconvenience.