In one of the largest hacking scam in US history the US government has accused five men from Russia and the Ukraine of masterminding one of the largest hacking scheme where hackers stole credit card numbers belonging 1.5 million customers of world’s two largest credit card processors - MasterCard and Visa and other as well and stealing more than $300 million from at least three of the companies they attacked. Two of the mastermind hacker men are in police custody, while three others are on the loose and considered fugitives.
Today the international credit card processor was blocked by Visa after it reported the possibility of a major security breach as reported by Wall Street Journal. The hackers from Russia and Ukraine reportedly hacked NASDAQ, Visa, J.C. Penney, 7-Eleven and JetBlue, among other companies from last 7 years almost i.e. from 2005 till early last year.
The two largest credit card processors MasterCard and Visa didn't reveal what allowed hackers to gain access into the system however they reportedly told that it was result of a third-party vendor and not their own internal systems. The affected Visa and MasterCard customers have not yet been notified that their account information was stolen.
The Wall Street Journal reports that customers' names, addresses and Social Security numbers were not compromised, the credit card numbers were only downloaded during the attack and didn't succeed in gaining more information using the card numbers.
[Image - Flickr, Joel Richards]
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