Dive Brief:
- Hackers affiliated with the Chinese government reportedly breached LoopPay’s systems in search of magnetic secure transmission (MST) payments technology as early as March of this year.
- LoopPay was acquired by Samsung in February for $250 million and now powers the Samsung Pay mobile wallet system, which made its general market debut last week.
- An investigation into the breach has so far found no evidence that the hackers were able to access system code or access consumer information.
Dive Insight:
Chinese hackers known as the Codoso or Sunshock Group reportedly breached the computer network of LoopPay as early as March in search of the magnetic secure transmission (MST) technology that is now giving the new Samsung Pay an edge over other mobile wallets.
Samsung Pay uses near-field communication (NFC) technology similar to Apple Pay, along with MST, which allows the system to communicate payment information to older magnetic-stripe terminals. LoopPay discovered the issue in August and is conducting an investigation into the incident, but there is so far no indication that hackers were able to access customer data or system code.