Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster on Friday warnedconsumers to be alert following a recent notice from the $262million Missouri Credit Union in Columbia, Mo., that member information was accessiblefor a short time this summer on its website.

Koster said in a press release that his office became aware ofthe unintended glitch by a MCU member and contacted MCU officials,who assured his office that the information was available only fora brief time and that the problem was fixed as soon as it wasidentified.

As required by law, MCU notified its approximately 39,000members, as well as the former members whose personal informationwas available online, the attorney general's office said.

Koster's office advised that members of MCU should closelymonitor accounts, and may wish to consider closing existingaccounts and reopening with a new account number.

In response to the incident, MCU issued this Aug. 16statement:

“MCU is committed to ensuring the confidentiality and securityof our members' personal information. Unfortunately, wediscovered on August 5, 2013 that a file containing memberinformation had inadvertently been made accessible through the MCUwebsite.

“The file contained a list of our members' names, addresses,Social Security numbers, account numbers, and MCU teller/call-inpasswords. MCU immediately removed the file and began areview of what occurred. We determined that there were only10 visits to the location of this file during the short time it wasaccessible.

“Even though we do not know if anyone actually viewed theinformation in the file, we began notifying all of our members onAug. 16, 2013. Out of an abundance of caution, we havearranged to have AllClear ID protect the identity of the memberswhose information was in the file for one year. Informationabout AllClear ID's services and how to enroll is included in theletter we sent to our members.”

The credit union's president, Hal James, said, “On behalf ofmyself and everyone at MCU, I apologize to all members affected bythis incident. Please be assured that we are working to enhance oursecurity measures to prevent something like this from happening inthe future.”

MCU set up a dedicated call center for members to call if theyhave questions about what occurred and steps they can take toprotect themselves.