FORT WORTH (WBAP/KLIF)- The City of Fort Worth has notified about 3,000 water customers that their credit card information may have been stolen after a data breach.
Mary Gugliuzza with the City’s Water Department said this only affects customers who made a one time online payment or put in new credit card information between August 27th and October 23rd. “Someone may have gotten into the system and added some malicious code that captured credit card data entered by customers and potentially their name and address as well,” she said.
Impacted credit cardholders are being offered one-year of free credit monitoring by CentralSquare, Fort Worth’s vendor for the Click2Gov software that powers the H2Online payment system.
Gugliuzza stressed only a small portion their customers have been affected. She said customers set up for recurring payments by credit card, those who pay in person or over the phone are not impacted.
Fort Worth immediately worked with Central Square to have the malicious code removed and initiated an expanded security review. Subsequently, the city replaced the server supporting the Click2Gov system and is monitoring the software for any code changes.
Additionally, the water utility is working to complete the previously planned migration of the online-payment system from Click2Gov to Paymentus. Paymentus has a standalone system which does not require the city’s server to act as a host, and it incorporates enhanced security features. The anticipated date for switching to the new payment platform is March 1, 2020.
