The Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), which consists of major retailers such as Best Buy, Gap and Walmart, announced that its mobile payment solution CurrentC has been hacked.
This news comes on the heels of MCX members, specifically Rite Aid and CVS, reversing their acceptance of mobile payment competitors Apple Pay and Google Wallet. Although both chains had NFC card readers compatible with the mobile payment systems, both companies eventually blocked NFC recognition.
“Within the last 36 hours, we learned that unauthorized third parties obtained the email addresses of some of our CurrentC pilot program participants and individuals who had expressed interest in the app,” the company said in a statement. However, a representative confirmed that “many” of the email addresses that were compromised were dummy accounts used for testing purposes only. The app itself was not affected.
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Merchant partners were notified of the incident and MCX engaged directly with program participants who were impacted.
“We take the security of our users’ information extremely seriously,” the company concluded. “MCX is continuing to investigate this situation and will provide updates as necessary.”
