A Maltese e-commerce firm has clarified that the consumer scam involving a leak of millions of credit card numbers is not connected with the recent data security breach at a major US retailer.

Credorax Malta Ltd was reacting to an article that appeared in Times of Malta last week titled, ‘Business severs ties over credit card leaks’, which said the company had halted all business with a number of enterprises owned by two Cypriot businessmen.

The article said the move came amid speculation that these companies could have made use of information stolen during a cyber attack on a number of US retailers last month.

Credorax said the consumer scam was initially reported by a US website blog dedicated to security matters – krebsonsecurity.com. Two of the websites implicated in the scam had previously been customers of Credorax.

However, Credorax said at the time of the blog’s publication it had already terminated its relationship with these two websites. This was a result of Credorax’s fraud monitoring and standing procedures; a fact that was subsequently reported on the blog.

“Credorax wishes to state that it has not spoken to two businessmen from Cyprus in relation to the termination of accounts. We addressed the termination with the principals behind the merchants as per normal business practices,” it said.

“The consumer scam reported in Times of Malta is wholly unrelated to the data security breach at a US retailer.

“While Credorax had terminated its relationship with two websites for good cause, it is incorrect to imply that this was in any way as a result of the aforementioned data security breach or that Credorax has any association with such an account data breach. Neither Credorax nor its merchants have suffered any breach of its systems.”