The Perils of Plastic: The Problems With Debit And Credit Cards Are Deeper Than We Thought
December 31st, 2013Via: ReadWrite:
I called the regional Secret Service office—that agency is involved in both protecting the President and investigating financial crimes—and talked to the agent that was handling the investigation. He confirmed my suspicions: The problem is far worse than we imagined.
While there are no real answers yet in our area, it appears that some computer systems have been compromised either at stores or in the companies handling the processing of card transactions. In other words, a company involved in the flow of payments has been hacked. It could be more than one company. The computer hacking has exposed everyone whose cards are going through those systems. The thieves are using the ATM card information in a way that does not require the PINs.
As the agent explained it to me, what happens once the thieves have stolen a bunch of numbers from a company is that they print gift cards with their name on them and our billing information on the magnetic stripe. He said they rarely bother with printing up credit cards anymore.
Research Credit: conceptualdecay
