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Hacker accesses 2.2 million credit cards
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Hacker accesses 2.2 million credit cards
Posted: Feb 18 2003
Fred Katayama
NEW YORK (CNN) -- A hacker has gained access to as many as 2.2 million Visa and MasterCard accounts, the two companies announced Monday.
The hacker breached the security system of a company that processes credit card transactions on behalf of merchants, Visa and MasterCard said.
None of the Visa accounts has been used fraudulently, Visa spokesman John Abrams said.
The affected accounts make up about one-third of 1 percent of the 560 million MasterCard and Visa cards in the United States. Spokesmen for the two companies said they have notified the banks that issued the affected cards.
Both card companies have zero-liability policies, which protect cardholders from being held responsible for unauthorized or fraudulent charges.
MasterCard and Visa would not disclose how many banks they had notified, nor would they say whether the hack was a regional or national problem.
Citizens Bank, a financial institution serving the Northeast, shut down the accounts of 8,800 customers whose card numbers had been accessed after being notified by MasterCard on Friday, bank spokeswoman Pamela Crawley said. All of those accounts were safe, she said.
CNN called several leading card issuers, but only one, First USA Bank, returned calls for comment. Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for its parent, BankOne, said FirstUSA's cards were not affected and that the bank was not aware of any security problems affecting its customers.
MasterCard said it is working with authorities, including the FBI, to help identify the culprit.
www.cnn.com
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