Massive Credit Card Breach Was On Data That Wasn't Supposed To Exist

from the who-can-we-blame? dept

Late Friday afternoon, MasterCard released the news about how potentially 40 million credit card holders were at risk of having their data stolen, after discovering a hacker had placed a trojan on the computers of a credit card processing company. That was scary enough, but as the details continued to come out over the weekend, the situation just seemed to get worse and worse. Jeremy Wagstaff notes that the processor in question, CardSystems, apparently knew about the breach for nearly a month but claimed they didn't say anything because the FBI asked them not to -- a charge that the FBI denies. Then comes the best part. The NY Times reports that CardSystems wasn't even supposed to have this data. The company processes credit card transactions, but isn't supposed to keep records of the transactions, as per agreements it signed with Visa and MasterCard. However, these days, when it seems to be common practice to play fast and loose with other people's data, CardSystems hung onto all the data, for its own "research" purposes. It looks like those research purposes just caused plenty of problems for an awful lot of people.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    dorpus, 20 Jun 2005 @ 1:45am

    What about Breached Babies?

    Will there be a massive international trade in aborted babies for human consumption? Stem Cell research, Chinese cuisine, you name it.

    http://www.tcnweb.ne.jp/~perfect/china.htm

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      anti-dorphus, 20 Jun 2005 @ 2:15am

      Re: What about Breached Babies?

      do you need some body parts dorphus - like a BRAIN ?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Precision Blogger, 20 Jun 2005 @ 8:05am

    Securiy by volutary compliance

    What's REALLY interesting is that the banks make security policy and then trust the processing companies to follow it. These records might not have existed if the the banks had been actively auditing the procesing companies instead of telling them what they were supposed to do and leaving it at that.
    - Precision Blogger

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Nikhil Agarwal, 18 Mar 2009 @ 1:40am

    Credit Cards

    I think one should choose a reliable credit card company that gives you maximum benefits. Get the best credit card deals online for Kotak Credit Cards. It’s time to get the best rewards from your credit card. Apply for free online credit cards available offered by http://www.kotakcards.com

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.