Visa Reveals Another Payment Processor Scam

As per the member of credit unions and banking associations, MasterCard and Visa are alerting banks about accounts being attacked by hackers.

Initial reports inform that the criminals leave malware on the processor servers. Security experts said that malware of this kind usually has some kind of remote control component that enables a hacker to use the server and divert data underground.

As of now, details about the hacking are not disclosed and it is not clear how the malware enter into the system of payment processor.

CEO of HBGary, Computer Forensics Software Company, Greg Hoglund, states that many of the analyzed malware are made to attack banks. If a user of the processor logged into the Net from a coffee shop, for instance, then this can be one way they are attacked by the malware. When they go back to company, the malware is now on the inside, as reported by DarkReading on February 23, 2009.

As per the Pennsylvania Credit Union Association (USA), Vista addressed a conference call on February 12, 2009 to inform the bank's members about the scam which affected transactions made from February 2008 to August 2008. The incidents included account numbers and expiry dates, but no track data was hacked; so, the hackers would not be able to design counterfeit cards.

Vice president and CTO of Open Security Foundation, a non-profit firm that analyzes data breaches and scam, David Shettler adds that the victim in this case is likely to be a provider that uses online transactions, as reported by SCMagazine on February 21, 2009.

Security experts claim that this case represents the 3rd data loss incident to impact payment processor in the last three months (since December 2008). During January 2009, credit card firm, Heartland, was attacked with the data breach. In this case, the number of infected credit card holders was very high. Further, during December 2008, RBS WorldPay revealed a breach that infected around 1.5 Million card users.

David Shettler claims that hackers have been trying to zoning in these credit card firms as they manage a big amount of details.

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» SPAMfighter News - 2/28/2009