The largest card swindle in the world done by unknown hackers.
TJX hackers have lost their doubtful record for data break-in involving card data. Then around 45 million cards were involved.
The American bank-credit card payment system company called Heartland has had unwanted visitors in their systems. Heartland is the largest US company within payment systems.
Malicious software has been planted in their systems to sniff card data. Visa and Mastercard reported suspicious activities in their systems and a research was performed and revealed a global effect of this break in.<br><br>
It is not certain for how long the hackers have been in their systems and collected data.<br><br>
There is not a certainty to what data the sniffer software has been looking for, but Heartland ensure that no personal information like social security codes, nor addresses or phone numbers have been taken out of their systems. But most likely the hackers have been looking for the track-2 data, which is the information from the magnetic stripe on the cards.<br><br>
Heartland treats over 100 million transactions every month and this seems therefore to be the largest scam ever done on card thefts.<br><br>
This means that more that 45 million cards are exposed to this theft.<br><br>
CardCops reports that there are rumors in the underground that a huge break in has been performed in a company like Heartland.<br><br>
In addition there has been a 20% increase in activities the hackers utilize to check whether the cards are working or not. They perform small transactions to charity organizations. December 23rd 2008 RBS Worldpay reported on behalf of The Royal Scotland Group that they have also had a break in to their systems. Around 1.5 million cards were leaked this time.<br><br>
To attack companies like this is more serious than doing a break in to a store as these companies are the nerve centers in any payment transaction through out the world.<br><br>
Drastic measures have to be taken in order to capture these hackers and at the same time make systems more bullet proof in the future.
He has a background as civil engineer and geoscientist. He has worked mainly within the oil and gas industry from the mid 1980s. He has written a few fictional novels as well as being the author of some professional litterature within oil and gas sector, he is now an editor of some web sites.
