Hackers steal email addresses of CurrentC testers

The mobile payments app, which doesn’t officially launch until next year, is an alternative to Apple Pay that’s backed by retailers including Walmart and CVS.

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A coalition of retailers called the Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX)—whose members include Walmart, CVS, Best Buy, and other major chains—has already taken considerable heat for some chains’ blocking the use of Apple Pay and Google Wallet in stores.

Things went from bad to worse Wednesday when news broke that the coalition’s QR-code-based mobile-payments alternative to Apple Pay, CurrentC, which is still in a testing phase, had been hacked.

CurrentC issued this email to people who are helping to test the app:

Thank you for your interest in CurrentC. You are receiving this message because you are either a participant in our pilot program or requested information about CurrentC. Within the last 36 hours, we learned that unauthorized third parties obtained the e-mail addresses of some of you. Based on investigations conducted by MCX security personnel, only these e-mail addresses were involved and no other information.

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