30 July 2007
Credit card details of 54,000 people have been found online, accidentally exposed to the internet by Newcastle County Council.
Tens of thousands of credit card details were stored on an unsecured server, which could have been accessed from the internet.
The card details were of transactions made between February 2006 and April 2007, for any financial item such as a payment for business rates through to a parking fine.
Brought in by the council itself, independent IT experts were testing the council's systems in order to discover any security faults when they discovered the unsecured details.
Mike Naylor, personal finance expert at free and impartial switching website uSwitch.com, said: "Importantly people aren't liable for fraud and will get any losses back from their card company - as their liability is nil if they have the card in their possession.
"If people lose cards or have one stolen the maximum liability is 50 and this is normally waived."
However Mr Naylor warned consumers to take all possible precautions, including checking statements as soon as possible to root out any illegitimate transactions.
"People should always check their statements carefully and query any rogue transactions," he advised.