Just while we were on the topic of financial institutions and security breaches, VISA and MASTERCARD disclosed recently that up to 40 million subscribers may have had their details ‘exposed’ by hackers who got into Card Systems Inc (an Atlanta, GA based transactions processing company) through open back doors. CardSystems tried initially to ‘hush’ it up, VISA and MASTERCARD got mad, and the rest is well, take a guess…

In this instance, it all came down to one individual with unauthorized access.

There you have it - one person can cause everything to come undone. In my opinion, its practically next to impossible to stop the one individual who’s capable and has done his homework, from getting into systems - it is certainly possible these days with our know how to come up with an effective ALERT and RESPONSE mechanism. Its not much good to shrug and say ‘but I didn’t know much about it…’

CNN’s take on the episode: http://money.cnn.com/2005/06/17/news/master_card/

Goes to show - even if you have strict Security Standards,like Visa and Mastercard already do, its one thing implementing security in your own backyard and another to get a supplier / partner to implement and enforce the same high standards.

This is actually a big deal. The media from Moscow to Medina had a field day - and the companies didn’t quite know where to hide. And PR people are scrambling to stop the blood letting.

More later. Although I would place a safe bet on Card Systems being flooded with class action lawsuits and probably having to seek Chapter 11 sometime this year because of the compensation amounts, contract termination fees etc which are all very likely to hit them.

Let me know what you think of it all,

RiOn