Audio visual cabling giant monoprice.com shut down its Web site – possibly for the next couple of weeks – while it investigates the possible compromise of its customer credit and debit card information.
Vincent Lim, monoprice.com’s operations manager, said the company took the site offline around midnight on Friday, Mar. 5, after it received e-mails and phone calls from several customers complaining about fraudulent charges on their cards that they had used on monoprice.com.
“A few of our customers recently reported to us that information from credit cards they used on the Monoprice website had been misused,” Lim said. “We promptly began an investigation with the help of expert computer forensic investigators to determine if any card data had been stolen from our computers.”
To date, he said, investigators have found no evidence that card information has been stolen from Monoprice’s computer network. The site is now allowing customers to browse products, but Monoprice won’t be taking any new orders until the investigation is completed, Lim said.
“We want to ensure that there is no security vulnerability in any part of our computer network system. We notified local and federal law enforcement agencies, our credit card processing business partners, and all credit card companies that some of our customers reported concerns regarding their card information to us,” the company said in a statement that now frames the top of its Web site. “We also advised these entities that we are working with outside security specialists to determine if there was breach of our computer system. We will post additional information when it is available.”
Monoprice’s corporate page on Facebook.com features a number of interesting comments from customers, some of whom attributed recent fraudulent charges to the incident, while others are praising the company for being so forthcoming and providing continuous updates via Facebook.