A MAJOR US credit card processing outfit has admitted that the personal data of tens of millions of its clients has been nicked in what could be one of the biggest hacks in US history.
Heartland Payment System said that card numbers, expiration dates, and in some cases cardholder names were exposed in hacker attacks on its systems. Apparently the data was unencrypted.
The hackers used sniffer software to capture authorisation data as Heartland asked for approval from major payment companies and banks. Victims were believed to be holders of Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover Financial cards.
While the company said it had “industry-leading encryption”, the data has to be unencrypted to request the information. At that point the sniffer was able to grab that authorisation data.
Read more Via ….. [The Inquirer]
