Originally published July 5 2005
Utah bank says big breach put data at risk
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Merrick Bank in Utah is the latest company to become entangled in the controversy over a security breach that has put personal data on 40 million cardholders at risk for fraud.
Merrick said that CardSystems had already made a number of changes, and with the help of an outside security consultant would complete any remaining changes shortly.
The National Australia Bank said Wedneday that it had detected fraudulent activity on a few hundred MasterCard and Visa accounts as early as November 2004.
MasterCard has said it did not detect atypical fraud levels until mid-April, when it was alerted by several banks and then began investigating; CardSystems and Visa said they did not start until May.
Over the last few days, cardholders in Australia, Japan, China and elsewhere in Asia have been told that their accounts are now at risk.
Even though American processors handle transactions made on American soil, any foreign traveler to the United States or shopper who visited an American retailer online may have found account information exposed.
The credit card industry is organized so that many of a bank's important functions are contracted out to third-party providers.
Merrick's disclosure raises more questions about the oversight of security controls in an industry where processing companies are largely unregulated, even though they handle millions of consumer records each day.
While Visa and MasterCard provide a list of security requirements in order to link to their networks, it is up to the bank that hires the processor to ensure that it is following the rules.
The associations, like Visa and MasterCard, require that outside processors pass an annual security audit and have their computer networks scanned every quarter.
Processors are required to register with the associations, but the results of the network scans are provided to the bank that contracts for their services and is available to Visa or MasterCard only upon request.
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