Associations Silent On Whether Any CU Accounts Compromised in Widespread Hack Attack

ARLINGTON, Va. – At least one credit union, according to a media report, had card accounts compromised in a recent computer hacker attack on a merchant’s card processor. According to an account in a Florida paper, a credit union in Brevard County had a “small list” of its card accounts which, VISA had said, had been compromised in the attack, which compromised over eight million credit card accounts. As of press time no one from the credit union had been able to verify the newspaper’s story. Both VISA and MasterCard cited security concerns and declined to say whether any credit union cardholder accounts were among the compromised accounts. Both have also steadfastly refused to reveal who the merchant processor might have been or how the attacker compromised the security to obtain access to the data. “In early February, MasterCard International was alerted of an intrusion to the database of a third party merchant processor in the U.S,” the card association said. Approximately eight million account numbers, of which 2.2 million are MasterCard cards, were possibly compromised. “Investigations are currently underway,” the association added. “While MasterCard International refrains from commenting on details of specific incidents, we have notified our member financial institutions of the accounts involved, so that they may monitor each account for fraud and/or reissue cards as appropriate,” the association said. VISA said something similar. “VISA’s fraud team immediately notified all affected card issuing financial institutions and is working with the third-party payment card processor to protect against the threat of a future intrusion. VISA will continue to monitor the situation and the potentially compromised accounts,” the association said. VISA also wanted to assure cardholders that, if there were any fraud conducted with the compromised accounts, the cardholders would not be liable for any of the loss. “It is important for VISA cardholders to know they are fully protected by VISA’s $0 liability policy, which means they pay nothing in the event of unauthorized purchases,” the association said. MasterCard was silent on the topic of individual fraud liability, but the association has a policy in place that caps most fraud loss at $50.00 No instances of fraud from the card number hacking have been reported as of press time. [email protected]