Visa drops card processor after security breach
Global Payments announced Friday that they detected “unauthorized access” into its processing system, and 1.5 million credit card numbers may have been exposed.
Global Payments is a third-party processing company that has clients such as financial institutions, government agencies and large corporations, including Visa and MasterCard.
According to the company, although credit card numbers may have been exposed, personal information such as names, addresses and Social Security numbers were not obtained by criminals. This security breach was detected in early March, but Global Payments has not specified exactly when or how it happened.
Global Payments claims the breach has been contained and said in a statement that it is working with “industry third parties, regulators and law enforcement to assist in the efforts to minimize potential cardholder impact.”
Visa Inc. has dropped payment processor Global Payments Inc. from its list of approved service providers due to “unauthorized access into a portion of (Global Payments’) processing system.”
Global Payments spokeswoman Amy Corn said although the company had been taken off Visa’s list of compliant service providers, “We expect to be reinstated once we have been issued a new report of compliance,” she said.
If you think your account has been compromised, contact your credit card company immediately and put a fraud alert on your credit report.
