Visa, MasterCard Data Breach Impacted Fewer Than 1.5 Million, Global Payments Reports

ATLANTA (AP) — Visa Inc. has dropped the card processor involved in a massive data breach from its registry of providers that meet data security standards.

Global Payments CEO Paul Garcia noted that the company continues to process Visa transactions, but that being dropped from the registry "could give our partners some pause that they're doing business with someone who experienced a breach."

Garcia said he expects to Global Payments to be reinstated once it has been issued a new report of compliance. But he declined to specify when that might be. He said the situation is "absolutely contained" but that the investigation is continuing and that parts of it still need to be resolved.

Global Payments says the data breach may affect less than 1.5 million credit cards from various issuers in North America. The company said that credit card data may have been stolen, but that cardholder names, addresses and Social Security numbers were not obtained.

The company said it will set up a website later Monday to help consumers who might be affected by the breach.

Both Visa and MasterCard say their own systems weren't compromised.

Visa and MasterCard had said Friday that they notified their card holders of the potential for identity theft and illicit charges because of the breach.

Aside from the U.S., Global Payments provides its services to government agencies, businesses and others in Canada, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

The company said it continues to work with regulators, industry third parties and law enforcement to help in the effort to minimize the potential impact on credit cardholders.

Last June, hackers stole information for 360,000 credit card accounts at Citigroup. In the past year, there have been high-profile data attacks against the International Monetary Fund, National Public Radio, Google and Sony's PlayStation Network.

For the three months ended Feb. 29, the company reported net income of $57.9 million, or 73 cents per share. That's compared with $48.2 million, or 59 cents per share, in the year-ago period.

The company has not yet identified the size of the charge it will take as a result of the breach.

Comments

[Jay Gould]

04:26 PM on 04/05/2012

In the wake of Global Payments' data breach, there has been a lot of advice on what people should do to protect themselves, but way too often we are asked to do more than what's needed and that can needlessly lead to different issues. However, while the damage done by the hackers is real, they cannot harm us without first tricking us into revealing the information they don't yet have (name, address, SSN). So as long as we are cautious and don't give our personal information to strangers, we will do just fine. For more: http://blog.unibulmerchantservices.com/how-to-respond-to-the-global-payments-data-breach.

[DrObvious]

07:59 PM on 04/02/2012

Or .... it could have said,     "credit card data breach adversely affects more than 1.4 million payments globally.   

I hope they have more than one low-level bank clerk sorting out the chaos from this latest in a long string of data breaches.

[AhmazingBailey]

09:42 AM on 04/02/2012

Whenever they say something hasn't been obtained, I always figure it HAS been obtained. Aren't these two statements from the article contridictary? If someone only has your credit card number, they can't do much with it. However, I thought if they have your social security number, name and address, etc... then you are at risk for identity theft. Regardless, this type of theft happens WAY too often.

From the article:
"Visa and Mastercard announced Friday that they had notified their card holders of the potential for identity theft and illicit charges because of the breach."

"Global Payments said that credit card data may have been stolen, but that cardholder names, addresses and social security numbers were not obtained."

[OrganicChic]

03:19 PM on 04/02/2012

Well I got alert Saturday evening stating 14 transactions was going through within 5 minutes of each other. They made over 2500 of purchases and one was coming through while I was on the phone with my mastercard account stating my card number has been stolen..The sad part is I am in Georgia and all of the purchases was made in Palm Springs Ca.

[AhmazingBailey]

06:22 AM on 04/03/2012

Wow. That stinks.

[mjcohen]

09:42 AM on 04/02/2012

This is Jim Issokson from communications at MasterCard. It is important to note that this breach occurred at Global Payments and not at MasterCard. If consumers have concerns, they are protected by Zero Liability and can contact their card issuing bank. You can get some tips here - -http://bit.ly/HtodVm

[AhmazingBailey]

11:02 AM on 04/02/2012

Visa has taken Global Payments off its list of companies compliant with standard payment security guidelines.

[CB5]

12:53 PM on 04/02/2012

Thumbs UP !