Security Breach Warning for Visa, Mastercard Customers

Companies are investigating the potential security breach

Visa and MasterCard are currently investigating potential security breaches of their customers’ account information.

According to Krebs on Security, the security breach may involve more than 10 million compromised card holders.

Neither company has said how the data was breached. Both Visa and MasterCard recommend that customers contact their banks for questions about individual accounts.

In a statement to News4, Visa tells us:

“Visa Inc. is aware of a potential data compromise incident at a third party entity affecting card account information from all major card brands. There has been no breach of Visa systems, including its core processing network VisaNet.

“Visa has provided payment card issuers with the affected account numbers so they can take steps to protect consumers through independent fraud monitoring and, if needed, reissuing cards.

“It’s important for U.S. Visa consumer cardholders to know they are protected against fraudulent purchases with Visa’s zero liability fraud protection policy, which exceeds federal safeguards. As always, Visa encourages cardholders to regularly monitor their accounts and to notify their issuing financial institution promptly of any unusual activity. Additional consumer security tips are available at www.VisaSecuritySense.com.

“Every business that handles payment card information is expected to protect the security and privacy of their customers’ financial information by adhering to the highest data protection standards. Visa also supports advanced security layers such as encryption, tokenization and dynamic authentication through EMV chip technology to further protect sensitive account information and minimize the impact of data compromises.”

Mastercard also states:

"MasterCard is currently investigating a potential account data compromise event of a U.S.-based entity and, as a result, we have alerted payment card issuers regarding certain MasterCard accounts that are potentially at risk.

MasterCard is concerned whenever there is any possibility that cardholders could be inconvenienced and we continue to both monitor this event and take steps to safeguard account information. If cardholders have any concerns about their individual accounts, they should contact their issuing financial institution.

Law enforcement has been notified of this matter and the incident is currently the subject of an ongoing forensic review by an independent data security organization. It is important to note that MasterCard's own systems have not been compromised in any manner."

Stay with News4 and NBCWashington.com for more on this developing story.
 

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