Visa drops Global Payments following breach

Visa has dropped Global Payments from its list of compliant service providers following the security breach revealed last week that may have compromised as many as 1.5 million cardholder accounts. Global Payments CEO Paul Garcia believes that his company should return to the list once it comes back to compliance, although he didn't give a more specific time frame.

Garcia says that Global Payments is still processing Visa transactions, but that being dropped from the list will distance it from other partners. He believes that the company will be reinstated eventually and that the situation has "absolutely" been contained. Regulators, industry third parties, and law enforcement are all involved in the ongoing investigations into the security breach.

The hack was revealed last Friday, when both Visa and MasterCard alerted their cardholders of possible identity theft and illicit charges due to compromised accounts. At the time it was estimated that only about 50,000 accounts may have been affected, but that number has been bumped to as many as 1.5 million accounts.

However, Global Payments says that only credit card numbers had been stolen and that cardholder names, addresses, and Social Security numbers had not been obtained. This seems to conflict with what Visa and MasterCard reported, which said that Track 1 data, including cardholder names and account numbers, along with Track 2 data were both accessed.

Furthermore, Visa said the breach took place between January 21 and February 25, but Global Payments said that the breach was detected and reported in early March. But all agencies are emphasizing that cardholder will not be responsible for any fraudulent charges.

[via Associated Press]