Posted on 06/17/2005 4:13:09 PM PDT by HAL9000
NEW YORK - A security breach of customer information at a credit card-processing company could expose to fraud up to 40 million cardholders of multiple brands, MasterCard International Inc. said Friday.The credit card giant said its security division detected multiple instances of fraud that tracked back to CardSystems Solutions Inc. of Tucson, Ariz., which processes transactions for banks and merchants.
MasterCard said in a news release late Friday afternoon that it was notifying its card-issuing banks of the problem.
CardSystems was hit by a computer virus that captured customer data for the purpose of fraud, said company spokeswoman Sharon Gamsin. The FBI was investigating.
MasterCard, which said about 14 million of its own cards were exposed, said it was giving CardSystems a "limited amount of time to demonstrate compliance with security requirements."
John Perry, chief executive officer of Cardsystems, did not immediately return calls. Nor did officials from American Express and Visa; Discover had no immediate comment. MBNA, a large issuer of cards, also did not immediately return a call.
The breach is the latest in a series that has hurt a number of high-profile companies - including Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and DSW Shoe Warehouse.
It also appears the largest involving financial data, said David Sobel, general counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
"The steady stream of these disclosures shows the pressing need for regulation of the industry both in terms of limitation in the amount of personal information that companies collect and also liability when these kinds of disclosures occur," Sobel said.
That the breach involved a third party also "indicates that this is a shadowy industry where the consumer never really knows who is going to be handling and using their personal information," he added." Presumably, the affected consumer thought they were dealing with MasterCard."
Earlier this month, Citigroup said United Parcel Service lost computer tapes with sensitive information from 3.9 million customers of CitiFinancial, a unit that provides personal and home loans.
There have also been breaches involving other kinds of sensitive data.
ChoicePoint Inc. said in February that thieves using stolen identities had created 50 dummy businesses that pulled data including names, addresses and Social Security numbers on as many as 145,000 people.
In March, LexisNexis Inc. disclosed that hackers had commandeered a database and gained access to the personal files of as many as 32,000 people.
The company has since increased its estimate of the people affected to 310,000. Information accessed included names, addresses and Social Security and driver's license numbers, but not credit history, medical records or financial information, corporate parent Reed Elsevier Group PLC said in a statement.
"Hardly a week goes by without startling new examples of breaches of sensitive personal data, reminding us how important it is to pass a comprehensive identity theft prevention bill in Congress quickly," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
Just wait until Hillary/Newt get our medical information centralized...
When I pay the last $300 off of my VISA, I will be cutting the card up and never doing business with them again. I messed up a year or so ago and sent a bill late, and now I'm one of the lucky 29 percenters. I can't wait until they try to lower my rate to keep me as a customer. I am not going to be rude to them, because I know the customer service people didn't do it. But they would have to do a lot to keep me. I was in pretty deep and paid a lot of interest.
"I was in pretty deep and paid a lot of interest."
I feel for you, I was there myself up until about six years ago, at which point I did cut them all up, except for one, with zero balance. The way things are going with insider jobs, though, I'm not in the clear anymore than anybody else is, as far as ID theft and fraud. Makes me want to turn into my grandfather and shove all my savings under a mattress, in cash, LOL.
Well I understand what you are saying. However it is just a perversion of the English language. We have a lot of high profile and influential people that visit this site and I wonder what they must think when they see posts with those 'patois' posted.
I just think that serious posts should remain that way. Otherwise, series and hugh and jump in the shower all you want.
I agree:
Not only 'hugh' and 'series',
but also 'beeber' and 'stuned' and 'heading now to the shower.'
I am so tired of those and others. They have ceased to be funny, LONG ago.
I consider them juvenile, and that the people who post them do not contribute any longer to the notion of public or meaningful discourse. Rather, it is what I term 'white noise'.
Unfortunately, sometimes on FR, people tend to memorialize the orginal posters of these terms as some kind of icons we should strive to emulate.
"We have a lot of high profile and influential people that visit this site"
I lurked for a year and finally started posting a few months back, and I have noticed that unique points of view on topics of discussion here do tend to appear in other media, sometimes within hours. It's more often in favorable media, but occasionally it's from folks adverse to a FR point of view. Not all of them are wags and editorial writers trolling for an interesting angle, either. Not nearly all.
Figuring that they had their CC payment systems running on the webserver, eh?
Duties and Responsibilities –
- Create new software and maintain existing software utilizing the .NET framework, C# and SQL;
- Analyze, design, develop, and implement secure multi-tiered web-based applications;
Should you decide to accept this mission, the Secretary will disavow all ...
The fraud is small compared to the bad debt. The credit card issuers charge off maybe 5% of outstanding balances annually, due to bankruptcies, etc. But when you are charging 20% interest, that's not so bad.
"The fraud is small compared to the bad debt."
It might be considered a small percentage in comparison to the percentage of bad debt, but it is an impressive number, standalone.
A Friend of mine recently told me about this ID Theft monitoring and protection policy:
http://wserver0.prepaidlegal.com/newCorp2/legal_plans/idt_shield.html
Which, after I studied it a bit, seemed like something that we couldn't afford to be without - especially in light of all of the massive ID data theft of late.
They say that most people don't even know they've been "stolen" for about a year after the fact.
Some get arrested on outstanding warrants for someone else running around committing crimes as "them" somewhere, and have a heck of a time convincing the authorities that they are not the "them" that is the wanted criminal!
Not necessarily, but I'm figuring that the security breach occurred on a Windows computer. Microsoft is usually the common factor in these types of crimes.
" Microsoft is usually the common factor in these types of crimes."
But, but, but... OTHER operating systems have vulnerabilities, too. Name one that doesn't.
It's inverted FUD, LOL.
If BSD became the OS standard nation and even world wide, hackers, phishers, phreaks, spammers etc would be ripping intoi it line by line and finding vulnerability after vulnerability as well.
Full Disclosure: Look up the legal term yourself, or I'll sue you.
Which one?
Full Disclosure: Sorry, I've been reading too many Ann Coulter threads :-)
but also 'beeber' and 'stuned' and 'heading now to the shower.'
I am so tired of those and others. They have ceased to be funny, LONG ago.
But you are forgetting about the influx of New Freepers...they deserve to be introduced to the cultural history of this find environment!
You forgot your sarcasm tag.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.