The transactions were using credit-card data stolen in recent breaches of retailers including Home Depot and Target
About 80% of the unauthorized purchases have been for items bought with smartphones at Apple’s own stores. The Apple Pay system itself has not been penetrated by hackers. Rather, fraudsters are entering stolen card data into phones, which can then be used to make purchases without a physical card being present.
The purchases are a setback for Apple’s foray into electronic payments, even though banks are responsible for verifying customer information before cards can be used with phones.
US consumers have been hit by a string of high-profile merchant breaches that exposed their credit-and-debit card information to criminals. Home Depot said in September 2014 that 56 million cards may have been compromised in a five-month attack on its terminals, topping the 40 million cards affected by the Target breach at the end of 2013.
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