On Friday March 20, Global Payments Inc., a credit-card processor for Visa and MasterCard, reported that hackers stole account numbers and other key information from between 50,000 and 10,000,000 credit accounts in North America. As ABC News reported, there is significant confusion about this data breach, and the companies involved are providing “more questions than answers.” However, this breach appears to be very significant. According to Global Payments CEO Paul R Garcia, the information is now in the hands of “fiends, bad guys, guys who are working day and night to hurt all of us.” Security expert Brian Krebs said that the number of transactions or card numbers potentially exposed while the company was actively compromised “is probably far larger than the 1.5 million number they are citing in their statements, because those statements appear to be based on a figure that the company can say with relative certainty were downloaded or copied from its systems.”
If you are a Visa or MasterCard customer, you should monitor your credit card statements very closely for strange charges. If you believe you are a victim of identity theft or credit fraud stemming from this breach, please contact us to discuss your legal options.