Experts speculate that the recent violation of 100 million card transactions credit could be the largest credit card breach in history. The reported number of potential victims is more than twice the 45 million transactions per credit card that were raped by criminals who hacked TJX credit card processing systems, the parent company of TJ Maxx, Marshalls and other popular retail stores.
Heartland Payment Systems, a major credit card processor based in New Jersey, announced this week that hackers had breached the company's computer network and potentially gained access to information Customer linked to about 100 million transactions processed by the company. The violation involved criminal intelligence that would acquire the knowledge and the proper equipment to create duplicate cards.
While Heartland is based on the East Coast of the United States, the company processes transactions for 250,000 companies located in the country and of all sizes and types.
There is no information available on the notification of potential victims, although most states have strict laws that require companies to disclose data breaches to consumers. Companies also routinely provide free access to a credit report monitoring service to victims for a certain period of time following a violation. There are not yet so Heartland will provide free credit monitoring report Victims word.
As always, our advice is to act quickly if you suspect that you or your family have been a potential victim of this violation. We recommend that consumers review their credit reports in order to identify accounts or suspicious activity. Many credit report monitoring services offer free access to your reports and credit scores when you sign up for a free trial (read our reviews and compare credit report monitoring services for more). It is also a good idea to keep an eye on your credit card statements and alert your credit card company for all costs that you think may be fraudulent.
In addition, we recommend that you subscribe to a protection service against identity theft, such as Trusted ID or LifeLock, which can help prevent further fraudulent financial statements to be open to your name.