Major breach of customer credit cards
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Heartland Payment Systems announced yesterday cybercriminals had loaded a data-capturing malware program onto their systems, which have possibly put a significant amount of credit and debit card numbers at risk.
The credit card processor is said to help more than 250,000 companies with payment solutions and has not revealed how many customers may have had their financial privacy compromised. However, it is known that no Social Security numbers, unencrypted personal identification numbers (PIN), addresses or phone numbers were involved in the breach.
Security officials said cybercriminals gained access to Heartland's systems through a similar attack used in past corporate breaches such as TJX and Hannaford, SCMagazineus.com reports. The attack against TJX resulted in the loss of an estimated 94 million credit card numbers, making it the largest reported data-loss incident in history.
Robert HB Baldwin Jr, president and chief financial officer of Heartland, said the company found evidence of the breach last week and notified federal law enforcement officials.
Some have questioned the timing of Heartland's announcement of the breach, since it coincided with the historic presidential inauguration of Barack Obama.
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