Heartland Data Breach Update
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Heartland Payment Systems Inc Data Breach
More information has surfaced on the cardholder data breach that occurred at the Princeton NJ’s credit card processor, “Heartland Payments Systems, Inc”. President and Chief Financial Officer, Robert Baldwin, stated “As deeply regretful as we are, it is important to note that in most of the cases the information would be card number and expiration date only,” and that “The majority of the data breached did not have names or other personally identifiable information available to the bad guys. So there’s nothing our merchants need to worry about.”
Seems that only customer card numbers and expiration dates were compromised and that no personal information, such as names, addresses, social security numbers, were compromised in the theft. Still no information on any damages to cardholders have been released.
Merchant’s processing with Heartland Payment Systems, Inc will be held harmless, as the breach took place on the server-side of the card processor. Small business owners with a merchant account should be sure that they are PCI Compliant to avoid any credit card processing fines from Visa or Mastercard. Here is A GOOD VIDEO to help small merchants understand their risk and responsibilities in combating credit card fraud.
Company Cites Cyber Terorrism Attack
Baldwin said Heartland executives have been in discussion with the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Secret Service and were informed that this breach was committed by an international organization that has also targeted other U.S. processors and financial institutions.
“I am finding it hard to believe that we are not responding to an obvious act of cyber terrorism aimed at trying to disrupt the payment system of the United States, and it just blows me away that nobody sees it,” Martaus said. “All of these intrusions are the work of one Russian Mafia gang. And 15 other processors apparently have been attacked and no one knows about it.”
Martaus suggested, however, that federal officials do know about these attacks but they’re not telling anybody. “This should be a national emergency, and the Pentagon, the National Security Agency, everybody should be involved in this,” he said. “This could absolutely destabilize the payments industry and bring it to its knees. A cyber terrorist attack, while not meant to destabilize the government or the economy, can do just that.”
MARK SANDS
1st National Processing
http://www.usa-merchantaccount.com
1-866 828-8683
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Tags: Credit Card Fraud, Credit Card Processing, Heartland, Heartland Payment Systems, Merchant Account, PCI Compliant
January 27th, 2009 at 11:19 am
[...] HSH Associates Financial News Blog wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptIf you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!Heartland Payment Systems Inc Data BreachMore information has surfaced on the cardholder data breach that occurred at the Princeton NJ’s credit card processor, “Heartland Payments Systems, Inc”. President and Chief Financial Officer, Robert Baldwin, stated “As deeply regretful as we are, it is important to note that in most of the cases the information would be card number and expiration date only,” and that “The m [...]
January 27th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
[...] See original here: Heartland Data Breach Update [...]
January 28th, 2009 at 1:25 am
[...] Heartland Data Breach Update Small business owners with a merchant account should be sure that they are PCI Compliant to avoid any credit card processing fines from Visa or Mastercard. Here is a good video to help small merchants understand their risk. [...]