Massive security breach could expose 100 million people

Up to 100 million of us could have sensitive financial info exposed because of a new security breach after a back-office credit card processing operation was hit by hackers.

Heartland Payment Systems was hit despite having modern encryption software. The crooks who breached their system got credit card numbers, expiration dates and internal bank codes for Visa and MasterCard users.

In what could be the biggest security incident in history, Heartland Payment Systems announced on Tuesday that it was the victim of a data breach that possibly compromised more than 100 million accounts after malicious software was found in its payment processing system.

How can you protect yourself? Well, Clark Howard says that you’ve got to thoroughly check your credit card statements and report any suspicious activity.

Beyond that, Clark feels it’s unacceptable that we still use ’60s-era magnetic strip technology in our credit and debit cards while other nations have gone to smart chip technology. With smart chip technology, even if a crook had your credit card number, they’d still need an additional secret PIN to make any charges.

He also feels that it’s only through sheer corruption that bank regulators haven’t required smart chip technology of the banks.

If you discover false transactions on your credit card, you’re protected under the law, right? But what about your debit card? There’s nothing required in current regulations to forbid your bank from charging you NSF fees if a thief steals your debit card. Your bank is only required to restore funds — they’re not required to waive any bounced check charges. Shame on the banks.

These kinds of things will continue happening until we implement real security.

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