NEW YORK, June 18, 2005
Hackers Crack Credit Card Security
Breach Could Affect 40 Million Card Holders
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Play CBS Video Video Avoiding Identity Theft Early Show financial adviser Ray Martin offers advice on how to protect your privacy and your money in a fast-growing climate of identity theft.
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Video Credit Card Attack 40 million credit card numbers were stolen in the largest heist ever of personal financial information. The companies that know which accounts were compromised are not talking. Tony Guida reports.
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A security breach of customer information at CardSystems Solutions could expose to fraud up to 40 million cardholders. (AP)
MasterCard International Inc. announced Friday that the breach was traced to Atlanta-based CardSystems Solutions Inc., which processes credit card and other payments for banks and merchants. All brands of credit cards could be affected.
The compromised data did not include addresses or Social Security numbers, said MasterCard spokeswoman Sharon Gamsin. The data that may have been viewed--names, banks and account numbers--could be used to steal funds, but not identities.
Gamsin said she did not know how the virus-like computer script that captured customer data got into CardSystems' network, which MasterCard said was infiltrated by an "unauthorized individual." Neither company would elaborate.
The Early Show financial adviser Ray Martin offers tips of what to do to protect your identity at the end of this article.
The FBI was investigating.
MasterCard said 14 million of its customers may have been exposed to fraud. A spokeswoman for American Express said a small number of its cardholders were affected, but would not give an exact number. Discover Financial Services Inc. wouldn't say whether its customers were affected. Visa USA and a large issuer of cards, MBNA Corp., did not return calls for comment Friday.
The incident was the latest in a series of security lapses affecting consumer information. The breach appears to be the largest yet 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," he said.
Under federal law, credit card holders are liable for no more than $50 of unauthorized charges, and many card issuers will even waive the $50.
©MMV, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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