40 million cards are at risk
Well, according to the Seattle Times, about 40 million credit card numbers belonging to US consumers were stolen by a computer hacker. And according to authorities, those credit accounts are at risk for being used for fraud. Luckily, no social security numbers were taken.
The unusual thing about this story is that all credit brands are affecting by this breach including over 13 million from mastercard and 22 million from Visa.
They caution that these accounts could be used for fraud because they have evidence that this has already occurred. According to authorities, fraudulent charges have already been posted to 68,000 accounts.
The card companies have left it up to the banks to get in contact with you if they determine that your card has been affected. however,if you see any weird charges on your card, you should contact your bank or your credit card company immediately.
Re: 40 million cards are at risk
[quote=benjaminz6]Well, I am sure that you are all tired of it but it has happened again. Another security breach. But this time, the breach affects 40 million cards.
Well, according to the Seattle Times, about 40 million credit card numbers belonging to US consumers were stolen by a computer hacker. And according to authorities, those credit accounts are at risk for being used for fraud. Luckily, no social security numbers were taken.
The unusual thing about this story is that all credit brands are affecting by this breach including over 13 million from mastercard and 22 million from Visa.
They caution that these accounts could be used for fraud because they have evidence that this has already occurred. According to authorities, fraudulent charges have already been posted to 68,000 accounts.
The card companies have left it up to the banks to get in contact with you if they determine that your card has been affected. however,if you see any weird charges on your card, you should contact your bank or your credit card company immediately.[/quote]
Just an update on this story.
Well, it turns out that the card processing firm that fell victim to a security breach was actually not even supposed to be holding the data. They were holding on to the data for research purposes.
This makes this security breach even more unbearable because the research was unauthorized. The card processing firm was conducting research on why transactions had registered as unauthorized or incomplete. However, the credit card companies did not allow them to conduct this type of research.
The processing firm was using customers names, card numbers and cvv (security) codes but not customer addresses. Mastercard contends that this information was improperly retained by the processing firm. they should not have been conducting this kind of research. This data was compromised because it was kept in a file that was unencrypted by the processing firm. Mastercard has alerted the processing firm to the need to update its security system.
i guess everything has to be reactionary; These companies wait for something bad to happen before they take action.
Information obtained from the register.