B.E.L. Clarifies It Stores Credit and Debit Card Information

Belize Electricity Limited issued a press release this afternoon to clarify a recent statement that the company’ executive made during a press conference on the recent cyber attack. The company’s executive initially stated that B.E.L. does not store customer’s credit and debit card information.  Today the company’s release stated that it “wishes to clarify that credit and debit card numbers and expiration dates are stored in the company’s database. Indeed, no such information is stored on the company’s filing system; however, it is important to clarify that the information is stored in the database system, which is kept on separate computer servers. The storage of this information is required by our merchant agreement with the card processing bank”. Notwithstanding the clarification, the company noted that there is no evidence that there has been any breach of its databases in which card information is stored.  B.E.L. says, based on its investigations to date, the leakage was limited to data stored on the Company’s electronic filing system.