Released: March 23, 2008

Credit card breach raises broad concerns

Source: Associated Press [NY Times] (Free Registration)

PORTLAND, Maine — When up to 4.2 million account numbers were stolen over three months by thieves who cracked computers at an Eastern supermarket chain, it at first sounded like the latest in a long line of credit card breaches.

But the specifics of the crime, revealed last week, included some troubling twists that might expose big holes in the payment industry’s security standards.

The supermarket chain, the Hannaford Brothers Company, said the data were exposed when shoppers swiped their cards and the information was transmitted to banks for approval. Thieves have commonly pilfered card data from databases maintained by merchants or card processors, but the Hannaford episode appears to be the first large-scale piracy of data in transit.

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