Bullion is platinum, gold, silver, or other precious metals in the form of bars, ingots, or specialized coins that is said to maintain its worth better than conventional currencies.
This is why bullions are usually bought and kept as a form of emergency currency by both governments and private citizens alike.
And JM Bullion is one of the players in the industry.
The company has earned a place among the leading web merchants in North America that in 2019, with Internet Retailer placing it at number 96 on its Top 500 online businesses, and number 5 at the Top 500 of 2019 Primary Merchandise Category (Specialty).
Unfortunately for JM Bullion, the bullion online retailer was a victim of a cyberattack back in February that was not discovered until July.
The hack happened on its website.
The website suffered what is known as the MageCart attack, where hackers managed to place lines of malicious JavaScript code into its pages.
Through the malicious code, the hackers could capture any payment information done on the site, and divert the data to some external servers operated by the hackers.
"On July 6, 2020, JM Bullion was alerted to suspicious activity on its website. JM Bullion immediately began an investigation, with the assistance of a third-party forensic specialist, to assess the nature and scope of the incident,” a notice sent to JM Bullion customers read.
“Through an investigation, it was determined that malicious code was present on the website from February 18, 2020 to July 17, 2020, which had the ability to capture customer information entered into the website in limited scenarios while making a purchase.”
Because bullions aren't cheap, the breach could have resulted in a breach of hugely sensitive information, including some high-profiled customer names, addresses and even payment information.
This, combined with the nature of the precious metals and items that JM Bullion sells, the scope of financial loss is potentially huge.
“JM Bullion takes the security of personal information in its care very seriously,” said the company’s CEO Michael Wittmeyer in a letter addressed to affected customers. “In response to this incident, JM Bullion notified law enforcement, our card processor, and the credit card brands, and continues to work with them as needed."
“We also reviewed our internal procedures and implemented additional safeguards on our website to protect customer information in our possession.”
Although there have been no reports of malicious activity caused from the hack as of yet, JM Bullion has notified all of its customers who made a purchase through its website between those dates. They have been advised to monitor their bank statements to check for fraudulent activity.
Law enforcement officials have also been notified regarding the breach
Over the past eight years, JM Bullion posted sales that exceeded $3 billion.
