By the latest count, the number of institutions that have informed their card customers and members that they were hit as a result of the Heartland Payment Systems (HPY) data breach has swelled to 157.
Heartland, the sixth-largest payments processor in the U.S., announced on Jan. 20 that its processing systems were breached in 2008, exposing an undetermined number of consumers to potential fraud. Since then, scores of banks and credit unions from across North America have stepped forward to say their customers are among those whose cards were compromised in the breach.
While Heartland and the credit card companies remain tight-lipped about the total number of institutions and card account numbers involved, Heartland has said that, at the time of the breach, it processed an average of 100 million transactions per month for more than 250,000 different retailers and merchants.
The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) conducted an informal survey of its members after the breach, asking if they had been contacted by Heartland. The survey elicited 512 responses from member banks, and 83 percent of them said they had either credit and/or debit cards affected by the Heartland breach. Only 13 percent of the banks said they didn't know yet if their customers' card accounts were compromised in the breach.
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Click here to see the latest up-to-date list of institutions impacted by the Heartland breach and - where available - the total number of cards compromised.
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