Credit Card Processor Hacked
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A computer hacker broke into the system of a third-party processor and gained access to as many as 8 million credit card accounts during the week of February 3, 2003.
Secret Service and FBI officials announced Wednesday (February 19) that the system of Omaha, Neb.-based Data Processors International, which does business as DPI Merchant Services, had been violated. Previously, National Processing Co. and Fifth Third Bancorp declared that they were not victims of the hacker.
Original estimates put the number of accounts accessed at between 5.6 and 8 million but later were revised to the higher figure, making this the largest breach of security ever for the card associations. It first was reported that only Visa and MasterCard accounts were breached, but officials of American Express and Discover later said some of their accounts were affected as well.
At least 3.4 million Visa accounts and 2.2 million MasterCard accounts were accessed. American Express did not release a figure, and Discover announced that only a small number of its accounts were breached.
It's unclear exactly how many of those accounts were compromised or if any have indeed been used for fraudulent purposes. The hacker's location is not known; whether the origin is within U.S. borders or overseas remains to be determined.
Visa said there have been no incidents of fraudulent activity reported on any of its cardholder accounts. MasterCard said that 2.2 million of the hacked accounts were registered to their users and had been "possibly compromised."
The affected accounts make up nearly one percent of the 574 million Visa and MasterCard accounts in the U.S. More than one billion Visa-branded banks cards are in circulation around the globe; MasterCard has 1.7 billion cards in worldwide circulation. Both card associations have notified affected issuers and banks, and both have zero-liability polices for cardholders. One bank in the Northeast, Citizens Bank, closed 8,800 customer accounts whose card numbers had been accessed after being notified of the breach by MasterCard on February 14.
The FBI is involved in the investigation.
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This article was from the Green Sheet Online.
