Massive Hack Hits Payment Card Industry

This from Wall Street Journal:

“Concerns about credit-card security heightened Friday after a little-known Atlanta company disclosed it had been hit by hackers, potentially exposing hundreds of thousands of account holders to fraud.

Credit and debit card processor Global Payments has been hit by a security breach that has put some 50,000 cardholders at risk, Andrew Johnson reports on Lunch Break. Photo: Bloomberg News.

The breach at Global Payments, Inc. is the latest in a wave of data attacks that have heightened consumer concerns about identity theft. The card industry has been particularly vulnerable to those concerns amid a slew of big breaches in recent years as more Americans choose to pay with plastic rather than cash.”

The Wall Street Journal went on to say that “Global Payments didn't disclose what type of data had been accessed, but said it had notified ‘appropriate industry parties to allow them to minimize potential cardholder impact.’”

As these types of hacks continue to escalate, every company should ask, “How safe is our data?”

You can read the Wall Street Journal article here (subscription required).