Citigroup data theft hits 90,000 in Japan

Private data for more than 90,000 customers of Citigroup's Japanese credit-cards subsidiary has been stolen and unlawfully resold, the company said on Friday. "Citi Cards Japan, Inc. (CCJ) has come to know that certain personal information of 92,408 customers has allegedly been obtained and sold to a third party illegally," the company said in a statement.The compromised data includes account numbers, names, addresses and dates of birth but does not include PIN numbers or security codes for the affected cards, the Citigroup subsidiary said."While the risk of fraud is minimal due to the absence of security information, CCJ has placed internal fraud alerts and enhanced monitoring on all accounts identified," it said. "No unusual or suspicious credit cards transactions relating to these customers have been detected at this point."The theft of the Japanese customers' data was not carried out by hackers, but rather by parties who had been given access to the data legitimately and abused their trust, a source familiar with the situation told AFP.The company has alerted authorities about the privacy breach and is in the process of notifying affected customers, CCJ said.In June, Citigroup told US clients that a security breach had compromised approximately 360,000 North America Citi-branded credit cards.The multinational banking giant came under scrutiny from US lawmakers for its handling of the breach, which was caused by hackers.Citi did not inform its clients of the May 10 attack until nearly a month later, and initially put the number of affected customers at about 210,000 before substantially increasing it. Citi is one of the world's largest providers of credit cards.