Redstone Federal Credit Union Computers Hacked

Huntsville-based Redstone Federal Credit Union announced Friday that members’ employee payroll checks had disappeared Friday, shortly after posting.

With more than 320,000 members, RFCU is one of Alabama’s largest CUs.

Denying that RFCU was hacked, Senior Assistant Vice President Ken Jost said, “Redstone Federal technicians are working on a payroll posting issue.”

He said further that he had no idea of how long members could not access their accounts saying, “I can’t give you a time.”

Attempting to dissuade members’ ire, he added that deposits to members’ accounts will be made “correctly as soon as possible.” Calling RFCU “very honorable,” Jost said that the credit union would be “making good” any checks bounced by members during that time, adding that there would be “no exception.”

Members reported negative account balances, missing automatic payroll deposits shortly after posting, and improper balances after ATM withdrawals when accounts were known to have plenty of money.

Customer Service said that electronic deposits termed Automated Clearing House were processed Friday morning, yet mysteriously, had in some cases disappeared, been double posted, and otherwise posted improperly. They offered no explanation of how such a problem could have occurred. However, the credit union recently changed to a new computer system which gave members and employees fits for several weeks.

When attempts were made to correct the errors, total failure occurred throughout the ACH system, forcing RFCU to shut down their in-house processing system and call in technicians.

The only acknowledgment given to RFCU members was a tersely worded automated telephone message that, “Your payroll will be posted as soon as possible.”

RFCU remained mute on how the hack occurred.