Security Breach
On January 20, 2009 Heartland announced that it had been "the victim of a security breach within its processing system in 2008". The data stolen included the digital information encoded onto the magnetic stripe built into the backs of credit and debit cards; with that data, thieves can fashion counterfeit credit cards by imprinting the same stolen information onto fabricated cards.
Albert Gonzalez was indicted in August 2009 on charges of masterminding the attack.
Read more about this topic: Heartland Payment Systems
Famous quotes containing the words security and/or breach:
“The three great ends which a statesman ought to propose to himself in the government of a nation, are,—1. Security to possessors; 2. Facility to acquirers; and, 3. Hope to all.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“Good manners, to those one does not love, are no more a breach of truth, than “your humble servant,” at the bottom of a challenge is; they are universally agreed upon, and understand to be things of course. They are necessary guards of the decency and peace of society.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)