On Friday, June 17th MasterCard International
announced that CardSystems Solutions, a Tuscon-based possessor of payment card
information, suffered a security breach that potentially exposed information on
more than 40 million credit cards. MasterCard-branded cards make up approximately
13.9 million of the affected cards. According to multiple news reports, CardSystems
Solutions detected the breach on May 22 and notified the FBI the following day.
Authorities believe the exposed information includes account-holder names, bank
names, and credit card numbers. Criminals could use this information for credit
card fraud, but not for identity theft. Multiple news agencies are covering
this story, including: CNET’s News.com, CBS News, Fox News, CNN, ABC News, and
MSNBC–many news agencies are using the original AP report.