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Visa Says No New Breach After All |
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In a statement issued February 27, Visa said that alerts recently sent to banks and credit unions warning them about a compromise at a payment processor were related to the ongoing investigation of a previously known breach, rather than a new incident.
Visa said that it had sent lists of credit and debit card numbers found to have been compromised to financial institutions "so they can take steps to protect consumers." The company added that it currently "is risk-scoring all transactions in real time, helping card issuers better distinguish fraudulent transactions from legitimate ones."
Visa's latest statement follows ones that both it and MasterCard International Inc. issued earlier this week in response to questions about breach notices that had been posted by several credit unions and banking associations. The notices made it clear that they weren't referring to the system intrusion disclosed by Heartland on Jan. 20 and suggested that a new breach had occurred.
Visa's initial statement and the one from MasterCard were both carefully worded; neither said specifically that the breach being referred to was a new one, but they also didn't say that it was a previously disclosed incident. Visa said it was "aware that a processor has experienced a compromise of payment card account information from its systems," while MasterCard said it had notified card issuers of a "potential security breach" affecting a payment processor in the U.S.
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