Investigators: Source of U.B.E. breach outside the country

GREENVILLE, N.C. - There's new information about a security breach at a college bookstore in Greenville.

Investigators say the source of the University Book Exchange information breach likely came from outside of the United States. The owner of the U.B.E. in Greenville says the breach happened sometime last month.

Police are taking reports from students in an effort to get their money back.

Students reported strange activity on their bank accounts, most of which were related to debit cards issued by East Carolina University.

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GREENVILLE, N.C. - If you shopped at the University Book Exchange during mid-January, you may want to check your statements for any unusual charges.

Credit card information was compromised and Nine on Your Side has been following this case of hacking.

ECU students first reported the problem last month, but we now know that any shopper, not just ECU students could have been affected.

"That's what is so challenging.  This is a very sophisticated happening that happened and we just really don't know how it happened and we're still studying it," said Don Edwards, owner of U.B.E.

More questions than answers for U.B.E owner Don Edwards, as he works to get to the bottom of how his system was hacked.

"We've been in business for 40 years, we've never had anything like this happen before," said Edwards.

The credit card system they use called Elavon serves millions of businesses across the country.

The Elavon database was hacked at one of U.B.E's busiest times, the beginning of a new semester.

"I spoke to a dad, then more parents started calling, more students started emailing so I said, 'oh, we really have a problem.'  Thought it was an isolated incident, but it wasn't," said Tremayne Smith, ECU SGA President.

Smith says the ECU student government immediately sent out an email notifying students and parents about the security breach.   

A necessary step, as those same security measures kept Edwards from contacting shoppers about the breach.

Edwards can only see the last four digits of a credit card and no other personal information.

"The charges have been throughout the country so we have no idea where the fraudulent charges come from and we have no idea why it happened to us," said Edwards.

Edwards says that because it was the credit card database that was hacked all cards used during that time, not just the ECU debit cards, could have been compromised.

    
Since the incident, Edwards has installed even more security software to better protect customers.

The investigation into exactly the how the U.B.E credit card system was hacked is still ongoing, but they hope to have more information later this week.