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.
I cut up the credit cards about 3 years ago. Didn't even deal with bank for a about the same time. I decided to open an account for convenience not too long ago, and I have to tell you, I worried far less about my money when I was keeping it all in cash. Now I'm nervous every time I go to check my account balance, fearing that someone will have hacked in and cleaned me out. Used to be I pretty much trusted that the money that was in the bank was secure. Now, I don't trust it at all.
Yes, and once medical records are digitized, they will be stolen as well. I've been reading too often this 'oops we lost 40 million cardholders information' headline. It's time to head to the cabin in the woods to seperate ourselves from all this 'convenience'.
Bad bet, IMO - anyone with a lick of sense would air-gap that webserver from the critical systems, regardless of OS. That's how we did it when I was in banking, and we ran our webserver on Solaris, so it's not a Windows thing. Personally, I'd bet it's one of two things. One, an inside job, or two, they're not as careful with their security as they should be. All you need is one person leaving their password on a Post-It where the janitor can find it, and it really doesn't matter what your OS.
I am becoming more and more convinced that Mastercard is owned and operated by the Mafia.
These "OOPS!" incidents are occurring with more frequency.
Well, theory #2 is totally obvious, isn't it?
Let's suppose that the Wall Street Journal report is correct, and their network was penetrated by a virus that allowed an intruder to access their internal network and steal millions of credit card accounts. Which platform is most vulnerable to viruses?
Let's not, and wait for the facts to come out, is my thinking.
Not trying to start a whole ruckus here...I'm just curious...what specific information from this article did you see that indicates Microsoft is to blame for these security f***ups?
The word "virus".
If, in fact, it was a virus....I'd be agreeing. But that seems to be a bit unclear as yet.
The rules!!!!
Nope. Congress' solution to any problem is always the least effective and most intrusive possible.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
You do know your tag line is misspelled?
Were you going for "very" "Barry" or "Bury"?
What many credit card companies charge is immoral. I agree they should get no slack. Dealing with fraud is a few legitimate functions of govt. These credit card companies need to be punished big time when they loose customer data.
We should also mention that the company did not use encryption on their files to cut back on costs.
MasterCard cannot just hold up their hands and point at their service provider -- third party service providers must be vetted also under GLBA, and if one has not been, then MasterCard is at fault.
What makes you think that a MS product was responsible for the security breach?
Our financial systems are also poorly designed, especially the one for checking.
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