Credit Card Breach Not That Bad

Credit card users, don't fret. Only a small fraction of the 13.9 million credit cards accounts at MasterCard exposed to possible fraud were considered at high risk, the company said.

MasterCard International Inc. spokeswoman Jessica Antle said only about 68,000 of its card holders are at "higher levels of risk." And while those 68,000 should closely examine their credit or debit card accounts, customers do not have to worry about identity theft, Antle said.

"No, none at all," Antle said. "Social Security numbers, dates of birth, information like that are not stored on your credit card."

MasterCard announced the breach Friday and said it was traced to Atlanta-based CardSystems Solutions Inc., which processes credit card and other payments for banks and merchants. The incident appears to be the largest yet involving financial data in a series of security breaches affecting valuable consumer data at major financial institutions and data brokers.

Only about 13.9 million of the 40 million credit card accounts that may have been exposed to fraud were MasterCard accounts. It was not immediately clear how many of the other accounts were considered at high risk.

Under federal law, credit card holders are liable for no more than $50 of unauthorized charges. Some card issuers, including MasterCard, offer zero liability to customers on unauthorized use of the card.

Antle said MasterCard traced the breach to CardSystems based on an unusual pattern of fraudulent transactions.

"I don't have the detail on what type of fraud it was," Antle said. "It wasn't a large amount of fraud, just an abnormal pattern that triggered our system. We have tracking systems in place to find the common point of interaction."

FBI spokeswoman Deb McCarley would not confirm the intrusion was the result of Internet hacking.

"I'm not going to get into details of what they have been able to determine right now," she said. She said CardSystems' call center in Tucson, Ariz., had contacted the FBI, and the Phoenix office is handling the case.

CardSystems' chief financial officer, Michael A. Brady, said Friday that his company was "blindsided" by the MasterCard release, adding that his company was told by the FBI not to release any information to the public.

Antle said MasterCard was obliged to its customers to release the information and was not told by the FBI to keep the security breach private.

McCarley said the FBI did ask CardSystems to not release details that might compromise the investigation — but she denied that the FBI had asked the company to not disclose that the intrusion occurred.

"I'm not sure where they got that impression," she said, adding that it was important for the public to be warned so card holders can be more careful while checking their statements.

CardSystems processes less than 0.5 percent of American Express' domestic transactions, said company spokeswoman Judy Tenzer. She said a small number of its cardholders were affected, though she did not have an exact figure.

Discover Financial Services Inc. said it was aware of the situation and would not say whether any of its cards were involved.

A spokeswoman for American Express said a small number of its cardholders were affected, but would not give an exact number. Visa USA and a large issuer of cards, MBNA Corp., did not return calls for comment.

The Early Show financial adviser Ray Martin offers these tips for monitoring possible identity theft.

ID Theft Warning Signs

Here are the signs that should tip you off if your personal and account information is being used fraudulently:

• Your monthly bank, loan or credit card statements stop arriving in the mail
  
• You get turned down for a new loan, credit card or a job based on information on your credit report
  
• You get calls from bill collectors from accounts you did not open
  
• When getting approved for a loan, the lender mentions that your credit score is lower that you believe it should be.

In short, you have to take as much interest in your credit record information as the bad guys do.

Request a copy of your credit report and review all the information on it at least every six months. If there is anything that is unfamiliar to you, such as a credit card or a bank account, ask the credit bureau how and when the account was opened. If it was not your doing, call the financial institution providing the account in question and alert them immediately.

Reporting ID Theft

If you suspect that you are a victim of identity theft, the Federal Trade Commission advises the following steps:

• Contact the fraud department of one of the three credit reporting bureaus and request that they place a fraud alert on your file. As soon as the fraud alert is confirmed, the credit bureau must notify the other credit bureaus to place fraud alerts on your files there.
• Request that the credit bureaus include instructions requiring a photo ID and an original signature to accompany any new applications for any accounts to be opened and require that no new credit be granted without your approval and verification of a secret password.
• Immediately close accounts that you know to have been opened fraudulently.
• Call your local police department and request to file a police report. Unfortunately, some police departments may not take your report, because these crimes are often multi-jurisdictional (because they are committed in several states). At least, request to file an incident report and keep a copy of the report in case you need it as proof of the crime later.
• Also call the Federal Trade Commission ID Theft Hotline at 877-IDTHEFT (877-438-4338), or its Consumer Response Center at 877-382-4357 to file a report.
• For further protection, notify all of your financial and service accounts that your personal information has been stolen and change all account numbers and add passwords on all accounts.