For the second time this month, PayChoice Inc., a large online provider of payroll processing services, has had to shut down its online portal because of a security breach.

The company said its Online Employer site was "briefly taken offline" Thursday as the result of a security breach discovered a day earlier. The company did not identify what the problem was, but said that it had deployed additional security measures to protect client data after it identified a "key mechanism" used by online attackers.

PayChoice, based in Moorestown, N.J, provides payroll processing services and technology. The company bills itself as the "national leader" in the payroll services and software industry and claims over 125,000 business customers.

A story in the Washington Post quoted from a letter PayChoice sent to its customers saying the breach appeared to be linked to the password reset function on the portal. Those responsible for the breach appear to have stolen login IDs and passwords belonging to customers by exploiting a weakness in the function, the Post reported. The company has disabled the change password capability on the site and modified all login IDs as a result of the intrusion.

The valid login credentials of an employee at one of PayChoice's customers was used to add fictitious employees to that customer's payroll in an attempt to have payments made to fraudulent bank accounts, PayChoice confirmed today.

Read the full story here on The Industry Standard website.