Hackers did not affect Samsung Pay, says firm

Samsung Electronics’ new mobile-payment service Samsung Pay was not affected by a Chinese hacking attack, the company said in a blog.

The attack involved three servers of LoopPay, a startup that was acquired by Samsung earlier this year and served as the basis for its payment service.

“The reported incident was related to LoopPay’s office network which handles e-mail, file servers and printing within the company,” the blog post on Thursday said. “This network is physically separate from the production network that handles payment transactions run by Samsung.”

Samsung Pay, which debuted in Korea in August and became available in the U.S. in September, is similar to Apple’s Apple Pay mobile payment service which has been out for a year.

While Samsung has not released usage numbers, the blog said, “Samsung Pay is off to an amazing start”. Older mobile-payment services, such as Google Wallet and Apple Pay, have struggled for mainstream acceptance.

After targeting retailers such as the Target discount retailer in the U.S., more recently hackers have been targeting healthcare companies and even credit-tracking firm Experian. Because mobile payment services can be connected to consumers’ credit, debit and rewards cards, they represent a wealth of information that could be valuable to hackers.

“Samsung is extremely committed to securing and protecting user data to the highest industry standards,” Darlene Cedres, Samsung’s chief privacy officer, said in the statement.

The attack was first reported by The New York Times. Bloomberg