MasterCard reports about a security breach affecting millions of users

MasterCard reports about a security breach

Two of the biggest credit card companies Visa USA and MasterCard International Inc. have reported that FBI is investigating a security breach which is said to have begun in 2004 and has potentially exposed 40 million cards to fraud. This is the biggest ever incident of credit card details being leaked on the Internet.

Jessica Antle, a spokesperson for MasterCard said in a statement: “A criminal investigation involves the FBI as well as other U.S. agencies. It’s likely that many of our issuers would be involved.” Citigroup is one of the companies in the list of MasterCard’s 32,000 issuers.

The last biggest case of this kind happened in 2003 when reportedly 8 million credit card records were stolen by some hacker. That incident affected Visa International Inc., MasterCard, and American Express Co.

MasterCard said that its security staff identified the breach at Tucson-based CardSystems Solutions Inc. This company a third-party processor of payment card data for MasterCard International. It is not an uncommon practice for CC companies to rely on third parties to process the billions of transactions taking place around the world.