Iran’s Central Bank has called on bank card holders to change their PIN numbers after news broke that as many as three million ATM cards may have had their security compromised.

The Mehr News Agency announced that the Central Bank has issued a notice to all banks, which have in turn relayed a message to account holders to immediately change their secret PIN numbers.

The banks have told their customers that this move is aimed at easing concern over certain online rumours and increasing security for the protection of customers.

Mehr reports that the move comes after rumours hit the internet that three million bank cards have been compromised by the IT company F. A.

“After one of the managers of this company were fired, he exposed certain information regarding the abuse of the bank cards to show that this company was riddled with security breaches and inappropriate relations in its banking surveillance systems,” Mehr writes.

The report claims that the banking information at 10 banks has been compromised.

That’s prompted customers to swarm ATM machines to change their passwords. However, the banks say that, so far, no abuse of any bank card has been reported. They have told their customers, however, that it is wise to change their PIN numbers periodically.

According to Mehr, there are 122,562,588 bank cards in use across Iran.

Source : Radio Zamaneh