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Heartland Breach Hits 440 Banks, A Number That Is Still Climbing

Written by Evan Schuman
February 10th, 2009

The number of financial institutions hit by the data breach at Heartland Payment Systems is now 440 and still rapidly climbing, according to a Thursday (Feb. 12) report from Bank Info Security. Bermuda, Canada and Guam banks were added to the list Wednesday, the story said.

That story also pointed to a wonderful Web poll (so it’s constantly updated) being done at the Independent Community Bankers of America site. Such polls are notoriously suspect, because there’s no way to verify the accuracy of answers or even if the respondents are who they say they are. With that caveat, the polls on Tuesday (Feb. 10) night showed that 83 percent of banks said they had been affected by the Heartland breach, compared with 4 percent who said they hadn’t and 12 percent who said they “don’t know yet.” Even more interesting is that the numbers overwhelmingly pointed to debit—as opposed to credit—card issues. That 83 percent figure broke down to 60 percent saying debit cards were impacted, only 2 percent saying credit cards were impacted and 21 percent saying both credit and debit cards were impacted.

Posted in E-Commerce, In-Store, Payment Systems, Security/Fraud
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