Western Union reveals customer data theft

Article : Western Union reveals customer data theft
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Good afternoon.

I’d like to take the opportunity to correct a few misstatements in your recent article entitled “Western Union Reveals Customer Data Theft.

Your article inadvertently attributes a quote regarding this matter to Western Union. The following quote is actually an assumption made by the author of a recent New York Post article and not a statement from Western Union.

“The information was stored on a database with poor security when the computer theft occurred in late May, the company said.”

I can assure you that consumer data security is of the utmost importance to Western Union. Western Union employs extensive security measures to ensure the safety of this information. These measures allowed us to detect the unauthorized access in a very short period of time and, upon detection, to immediately shut it down.

At this time it is unclear whether the information in question has been stolen. We know that a file containing this information was viewed by an unauthorized party, but have no evidence that it was downloaded or copied. We also have not been informed of any consumer identity theft or fraudulent financial transactions related to this incident.

We continue to work with local and federal authorities to investigate this matter and are providing affected consumers with a year of free credit-monitoring services to help protect them from identity theft.

We value the trust our customers place in Western Union and deeply regret any concern or inconvenience this matter may have caused them. I can assure you that we are taking all necessary steps to resolve this issue.