Breach exposes 4.2 million credit, debit cards

[RamboLiberal]

Source: MSNBC/AP

A security breach at an East Coast supermarket chain exposed 4.2 million credit and debit card numbers and led to 1,800 cases of fraud, the Hannaford Bros. grocery chain announced Monday.

Hannaford said credit and debit card numbers were stolen during the card authorization process and about 4.2 million unique account numbers were exposed.

The breach affected all of its 165 stores in the Northeast, 106 Sweetbay stores in Florida and a smaller number of independent groceries that sell Hannaford products.

The company is aware of about 1,800 cases of fraud reported so far relating to the breach.



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23678909/

[hedgehog]

1. CAn someone please explain to me why so many people use home shredders

to keep criminals from rifling though their garbage looking for credit card info?

[magellan]

2. To keep home shredder manufacturers in business?

:shrug:

[shireen]

3. are you suggesting that it's not useful to shred documents with credit info? nt

[hedgehog]

4. I'm just wondering what the odds are that someone will actually go through your garbage

looking for your old bills vs. some hacker stealing your numbers along with those of 100,000 other people.

[shireen]

7. yes, I see your point, but if you recycle paper,

it's a bit easier for them to dig around looking for old bank statements and credit card applications, etc.. To err on the side of caution, I shred those documents. But that hasn't stopped a couple of jackasses from stealing my CC# from some place with lousy security to buy access to a porn site. Fortunately, the porn site company was very understanding and immediately reimbursed my account. I had to cancel that card, and was issued a new one by the credit card company. But I was so mad about it ... the porn company gave me all the contact info that the crooks used to register on the site, and if I hadn't been sick at the time, I would have done my damned best to track those morons down (assuming the contact info wasn't bogus).

Another scam ... there was a company that was charging my account on another card about $50/month for payment protection insurance. Except that I have a stable job and don't need that coverage -- I never requested it. Unfortunately, it was three months into this scam when I discovered the error. I immediately called that company and demanded a refund. They claimed I had given verbal approval over the phone, which is such baloney! They would only refund the latest payment, and told me to contact my credit card company to file a dispute. However, disputes have to be made within 30d of when it first appeared in a statement, and I had passed those deadlines. So I wrote a sternly-worded letter to the credit card company, Chase, telling them that I had not authorized these charges, threatened to pay off the balance and close the card unless they reimbursed me for those charges. Given the current economic climate, I was expecting them to reject my dispute. But to my utter surprise, they accepted the dispute and I got a full refund. WOW! Not every day you hear about those leeches doing the *right* thing!

[AnOhioan]

5. 218,827,445 records compromised since Jan. 2005

http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/ChronDataBreaches.htm

[Hawkeye-X]

6. More reason for Chimpy to be impeached.

And the Republicans and the Credit Card Dems to be tossed out, and YES I mean Clinton and Biden as an example.

Hawkeye-X

[hedgehog]

8. Both my daughter and I have been informed in the last few weeks that

one of our cards was compromised. (Totally differnt companies). I'm waiting for the next phishing scam to emerge in which someone compromises your card and then calls you up so you think the credit card company is on it so you don't bother calling them.

[high density]

9. Joy I use my debit card at Hannaford weekly

The ONLY FUCKING PLACE I USE IT AT.

I will shop at Shaws now.

[Supersedeas]

10. it could happen again...but who is paying attention

[Robbien]

11. Timeline: Breach started 12/07/07, discovered 2/27/08, Breach stopped 3/10/08

Actual number of time stolen card numbers have been used by the thieves: 1,800 times (so far).

Banks had a hard time shutting down the operation because

"Visa and MasterCard have stipulated in their contracts with retailers that they will not divulge who the source is when a data breach occurs"

So the banks had no clue Hannaford Bros. grocery chain was the source of the breach.

Hannaford reported at least 45.7 million cards were exposed, while banks' court filings put the number at more than 100 million.

data from:
http://money.aol.com/news/articles/_a/data-breach-reveals-42-million-cards/20080317141609990001

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. Whoa, "stopped" TWO WEEKS after if it was discovered?

:wtf:

[Robbien]

13. The bank card companies refused to cooperate with bank investigators

Bank investigators didn't even know where the breach was because the bank card companies refused to cooperate.

[zonkers]

14. Maybe its time to start using cash again.

[pitohui]

15. yeah because nobody was ever rolled for their CASH eom

.