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Who Checks Up On The Master(Card)?

from the priceless dept

Thu, Jan 12th 2006 3:13pm — Carlo Longino

In an effort to get online retailers to beef up their security measures, MasterCard says it will charge reduced transaction processing fees to those that use its SecureCode authentication service, as well as offer free network vulnerability scans to check the security of their sites. The motives aren't completely altruistic, since the use of stolen credit cards costs the company, but beefing up retailers' online security is a good thing nonetheless. Just one question though -- who gives MasterCard an incentive to tighten up the security of the rest of its chain? Remember that a card processor MasterCard used leaked 40 million credit card numbers -- numbers that it wasn't even supposed to have. Sure, the company lost its processing contracts and subsequently disappeared, but that's of little solace to 40 million credit card holders. As long as MasterCard's got little to fear in the way of fines, it seems like it could be a little short on motivation.

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4 Comments

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noname, 13 Jan 2006 @ 11:45pm

My mastercard
Having a Mastercard for many (10's) of years,(with never a bad charge, lost or stolen card) I got a strange letter in the mail. Effective 2 weeks from now you are getting a new Mastercard with a completely new number. I was perplexed since my current card was still good for a year more or so, and they almost never change the number since it effects all my auto-billings. I then put things together, this was about 2 weeks after all that credit card info was lost/stolen...my number must have been in the batch. So far so good with my accounts.
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- clover, 15 Jan 2006 @ 11:06pm
  
  Re: My mastercard
  Wow... your lucky... I had to switch because my master card was always getting some kind of stupid charge... I was always "responsible" for it and was never given a new card number. The strange thing about mine was that the card I had was only active for about 2 months AND I had only used it once, before paying it off and cutting it up... consider yourself one of the lucky customers.
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Haley Morgan, 26 May 2006 @ 11:37am

fuck dat!
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jk, 26 May 2006 @ 11:37am

fuck dat!
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