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Network Intrusion Puts Credit Card Accounts at Risk
01/26/09 - 06:26 PM
WMBB News Department
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Bay County, Fla:

A network intrusion puts some Visa credit card accounts at risk for those who bank at Innovations Federal Credit Union.

The incident was reported by Visa Fraud Control and Investigations Unit, it involves a program that broke into the Heartland Payment Systems software.

Heartland Payment Systems is the 6th largest payment processing company in the country. 150,000 merchant groups were on Visa’s list that use Heartland to authorize transactions.

In visa’s report, they say millions of accounts have been effected,

President and CEO of Innovations David Southall calls this “potentially the largest breach in credit card history.”

He says his credit union is working hard to help credit card users who may have fallen victims to the Sniffer.

“What happens is counterfit cards are created through the Sniffer software,” he said.

A hacker created the Sniffer, a malicious software that tracks credit cards during transactions capturing personal information.

“Anytime a transaction would go through this authorization the the Sniffer software was able to track the person’s credit card number, security code and expiration date.”

So if a person used their card at any of those merchant groups during the time of May 15 to November 13 of last year, chances are they were effected.

Innovations Federal Credit Union has addressed the issue on their website and stress that it’s not just their credit union, it can be any Visa or Mastercard holder who may have bought something at a place that uses Heartland to authorize credit cards.

Southall says over 400 credit card users that bank with his company were on Visa’s list.

“What we’ve done at Innovations is that we’ve contacted the people who were on the list and issued new cards and new account numbers.”

Innovations also stressed that people should always monitor their bank statements for any suspicious activity.

Heartland has created a website as a resource tool for anyone who has questions or wants more information, you can visit it here.

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