Eastern Europe is well-known as a major source of cyber-attacks, but a prominent recent breach raises the question: is it also a major victim?
Visa Europe and Romania's state-owned CEC Bank are investigating a security breach reported last week. But hackers do not view Eastern European banks as easy prey, says Zil Bareisis, a senior analyst for research firm Celent.
"If anything, the recent breach being investigated by Visa demonstrates that all countries and regions are susceptible to data breaches," he says.
However, Eastern Europe has a reputation that most other parts of the country would not want, Bareisis adds. "Eastern Europe does stand out as an originator and a source of hacking attacks," he says.
Neither Visa Europe nor Bucharest-based CEC have said which countries were affected by the most recent breach.
After the Romanian Banks Association informed media of the breach on Dec. 14, CEC issued a statement on its website informing cardholders of the bank's plan to block 17,000 cards that possibly were compromised and to reissue new cards and PINs at no cost to bank customers.
The cards issued by banks in Romania and abroad may have been compromised through an international database, according to CEC, which specializes in commercial and investment banking.
CEC assured its customers that the bank's security system was not compromised, and Visa Europe reportedly advised the bank that hackers likely breached the system of a European payment processor.
Visa Europe did not name the processor and was not available for comment or updates about the incident. But in a statement last week, the card association said it was working closely with its member banks to ensure cardholder data is protected.
European media and bloggers were quick to speculate last week that the European Union would impose big fines on Visa Europe for the security breach at a time when the region is preparing to introduce stricter guidelines and more governing power for itself in the area of combating data-security attacks.
