More than 5 million Visa and MasterCard accounts throughout the nation were accessed earlier this month after the computer system at a third-party processor was hacked, according to representatives for the credit card companies.
Early indications were that none of the information, which would include credit card numbers, was used in a fraudulent way, according to the representatives. Visa and MasterCard said they could not provide a timeline of when the breach took place or details on how it was accomplished because it involved a third-party processor used by merchants and not Visa or MasterCard systems. They would not disclose the name of that processor. Visa and MasterCard are associations made up of financial institutions that issue the cards. MasterCard said it began to notify its members the week of Feb. 3 that more than 2 million accounts had been broken into after the processor told it about the problem, MasterCard spokeswoman Sharon Gamsin said. About 3.4 million Visa accounts were accessed in the incident, according to spokesman John Abrams. Full Story
