40M Credit Card Numbers Stolen, Where M = Million

This has simply not been a good year for banks and credit companies. Earlier in the year, several companies had issues with credit or debit cards stolen while tapes were in transit between sites. Now, MasterCard has announced that over 40,000,000 card numbers may have been compromised by a hacker that infitrated a third party's computer system. MC's macho response? "We'll tell the member banks and let them worry about it." Sigh.

A security breach has occurred at a third-party processor of payment card transactions that affects over 40 million credit card accounts, Mastercard International said Friday.
Of the cards involved, 13.9 million were MasterCard-branded cards, which include Maestro and Cirrus, and 22 million were Visa cards, said Visa spokeswoman Rhonda Bentz.
The breach took place at the Tucson office of CardSystems Solutions, which processes transactions on behalf of financial institutions and merchants. CardSystems said in a statement that it identified the breach on May 22 and contacted the FBI the next day.
Mastercard learned the final details of the breach this week, according to spokeswoman Jessica Antle. "It looks like a hacker gained access to CardSystems' database and installed a script that acts like a virus, searching out certain types of card transaction data."

Makes me wonder how close we are to a day when there is a strong national movement back towards paper checks and cash transactions. Financial institutions need to understand that security is not just job 1, it may be the ONLY important job they have.