Reply #22: And speaking of our fates being in the hands of fools...

[Zenlitened]

Firm says up to 40m credit card files stolen

MasterCard points to computer virus

By Hiawatha Bray and Sasha Talcott, Boston Globe Staff | June 18, 2005

In one of the biggest identity thefts ever, as many as 40 million credit card numbers have been stolen from an Atlanta credit card processing firm, according to MasterCard International, and some of the stolen numbers have already been used to make fraudulent purchases.

MasterCard said yesterday that criminals used a computer virus to collect vast amounts of financial data moving through the company's computer network and estimated that 13.9 million of its accounts may have been stolen. Thieves also had access to millions of cards issued by Visa and Discover, as well as some American Express cards. There have been dozens of major identity theft cases this year, affecting nearly 10 million Americans. But the breach revealed by MasterCard is by far the biggest -- four times larger than all the others put together.

''This illustrates that consumers don't have control over their personal sensitive information, and that has to change," said Susanna Montezemolo, policy analyst for Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports magazine. Consumers Union is calling for states and the federal government to require companies to notify customers if their personal data have been breached...

(snip)

Such notification would publicly embarrass the companies and force them to be more careful, said Frank (US Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Newton), the ranking member of the House Committee on Financial Services. ''Their argument is, 'we don't want to clog people's mailboxes.' Coming from the financial services industry, that is the silliest thing you ever heard."

Source:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/06/18/firm_says_up_to_40m_credit_card_files_stolen/