Freedom Federal Credit Union, other financial institutions impacted by debit card attack

BALTIMORE -- Members of the Freedom Federal Credit Union, which has branches in Baltimore and Harford County, are among several financial institutions impacted by a credit card BIN attack. 

Carmen Mirabile, Senior Vice President of Marketing, said Freedom FCU was notified that unauthorized charges were made to the credit cards of numerous Freedom members, and customers of other financial institutions last Friday.  

All Freedom members who were impacted were contacted, and all unauthorized charges and any related fees were refunded to those customers. 

"As a member-owned, non-for-profit financial institution whose sole purpose is to support the financial needs of the communities we serve, this type of incident negatively impacts us all,"  Mirabile said. 

The Harford County Sheriffs office said that no investigations specific to the Freedom FCU data breach are being conducted at this time.  

BIN attacks are a type of cyberattack which in which the attacker uses sophisticated software to guess credit card numbers.     

"This incident is in no way an attack on Freedom's systems, and members' accounts are safe and secure," Mirabile said.

Editor's note: A previous version of this article incorrectly described the incident as a data breach at Freedom Federal Credit Union. It has been updated to reflect it was a debit card attack on multiple institutions.