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Credit card information exposed on Woolworths site

Will Knight ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 11 Aug 2000 17:15 BST

UK retailer Woolworths has taken down its Web site -- www.woolworths.co.uk -- after it exposed two users' financial information.

The personal information of two Woolworths customers, including their credit card numbers, was inadvertently published on one of the company's Web pages, according to a spokesman.

The spokesman says that the information was up for a few minutes and to Woolworths' knowledge no one has made fraudulent use of the customer's credit card details.

Woolworths is still investigating the reason for the blunder and says that the site will not be put back online until it has been rectified. The company admits to being greatly embarrassed by the incident. "We alerted the users immediately and apologised profusely to them," says the spokesman.

The incident comes just a week after Barclays' Internet service was affected by a similar security blunder.

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