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Your Customers' Credit Card
Numbers at Risk
Hacker Gets Access to Credit Card Numbers
Feb 18, 12:30 PM (ET)
By EILEEN ALT POWELL
NEW YORK (AP) - A computer hacker gained access to more
than 5.6 million Visa and MasterCard account numbers
by breaching the security of a company that processes
transactions for merchants, the card associations said
Tuesday.
Visa USA spokesman Mike Riley said ... he could not
identify the third-party processor or say exactly when
or how the hacker got access to the account information,
which involves some 3.4 million Visa accounts and 2.2
million MasterCard accounts.
A source with knowledge of the situation who spoke on
condition of anonymity said that the incident occurred
in early February.
Processors handle transactions for merchants, bundling
and transmitting charges to the banks that issue the
cards.
Visa, which is based in Foster City, Calif., said that
after learning of the incident, the company's fraud
team "immediately notified all affected card-issuing
financial institutions and is working with the third-party
payment card processor to protect against the threat
of a future intrusion." ... MasterCard Inc., which is
based in Purchase, N.Y., said that affected banks had
been notified. A MasterCard spokesman did not immediately
return calls seeking comment.
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