Like many a gadget freak, I have been and remain an unabashed fan of Monoprice.com, the home of ridiculously cheap electronic parts, cables and (to date) outstanding customer service. Unfortunately, though, Monoprice's site has been down for a couple of days now, and according to this story from Briam Krebs, it's because their customer database has been "compromised":
Audio visual cabling giant monoprice.com shut down its Web site – possibly for the next couple of weeks – while it investigates the possible compromise of its customer credit and debit card information.
Vincent Lim, monoprice.com’s operations manager, said the company took the site offline around midnight on Friday, Mar. 5, after it received e-mails and phone calls from several customers complaining about fraudulent charges on their cards that they had used on monoprice.com.
“A few of our customers recently reported to us that information from credit cards they used on the Monoprice website had been misused,” Lim said. “We promptly began an investigation with the help of expert computer forensic investigators to determine if any card data had been stolen from our computers.”
To date, he said, investigators have found no evidence that card information has been stolen from Monoprice’s computer network. The site is now allowing customers to browse products, but Monoprice won’t be taking any new orders until the investigation is completed, Lim said.
This is pretty lousy for anybody who's had their credit card data stolen (which could well include me; my Visa card popped up a fraudulent charge a couple of weeks ago--fortunately the bank caught it even before I did), but being willing to voluntarily shut down their entire business for as long as "a couple of weeks" to track down the problem speaks well of Monoprice.
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