FrugalBrothers Software

A massive number of credit card holders may find themselves victim to what might be the largest cyber-crime in U.S. History.

Heartland is in the news right now because hackers were able to steal millions of credit numbers and information they needed

How did this happen? It is believed that in early May of last year hackers were able to get malware on to Heartland’s computers network which intercepted the credit that were being processed. The little magnet strips on the back of your credit cards contains all the information which the bad guys would need to generate another credit card.

Heartland payment systems didn’t even notice such an event occurred until late last fall, and then they waited until the inauguration of president Obama to make the announcement, that they were hacked. This is probably going to make what happen at TJ MAX look really small, but what is really disturbing, Heartland is only willing to do the bare minimum to do the right thing.

Not all states require the victims or potential victims of this kind of theft, have to be notified. Only about 30 states have laws that require them to and other states are pending. The president of Heartland said they will only notify in the states that have data loss disclosure laws in place. The right thing to do of course is to notify everyone who’s credit card may have been compromised and make sure credit monitoring is put in place and any expenses inquired be taken care of.

Dan Clemons, president of card cops, told USA today that Heartland’s action stink of denial, it’s embarrassing, when hackers can reach major financial instructions and pillage and damage company’s reputations, but if said company is not willing accept responsibility and take action to support his customers they deserve part of the blame.

How on earth, if you look at the regulation and rules of Visa, Master card, and American Express, they put together the payment card industries data security standards which are a very tough set of standards. It would seem on the surface that Heartland may have not followed the rules.

It is time to put pressure Washington to make sure those people we trust with our information is held to a higher standard. And not only say here are the rules, but make sure the rules are being enforced.