In late October, Heartland Payment Systems, a Princeton, N.J.-based company that provides payment processing for roughly 200,000 U.S. businesses, was contacted by Visa and MasterCard about reports of fraudulent activity taking place on cards it had processed. A forensic examination revealed vicious malware on the company's server that was recording private cardholder data, and presumably transmitting it to a third party.
It was disturbing news for a company that processes roughly 100 million transactions per month, 40 percent of which are for small-to-medium-sized restaurants.
In light of this and other cases, such as the infamous T.J. Maxx breach, what are the responsibilities of consumers and the card associations when it comes to preventing major card data breaches? In an interview with Travis Kircher, editor of SelfService.org, David Shackleford, chief security officer at Configuresoft Inc., weighs in.
