Hacker steals data from VISA and MasterCard; announces on Twitter

A hacker, going by the name Reckz0r (@Reckz0r), recently tweeted  that he has managed to illegally access the servers of 79 large banks, which he had been targeting since the past 3 months. In a follow-up tweet, Reckz0r revealed that he leaked half the data from VISA, one of the world's largest credit and debit-card processing networks and MasterCard. He also went on to state that the entire file was about 50GB or more. Reckz0r wrote, "I just leaked a half data of VISA & Mastercard, the full one is about 50GB or bigger," and in an earlier tweet, mentioned, "I penetrated over 79 large banks, I've been targetting these banks since 3 months."

Tweets

In a more detailed post on Pastebin, wherein he has also provided the download link, he wrote -

"Hello folks. I'm Reckz0r, oh f*** that part, I've been saying that for ages, Just call me Reckz0r or Reckz, or Jeremy. Today, I am here to fulfill your 'lulz' attention with some excitement & entertainment!

Today's target is VISA & Mastercard, I will be only leaking a portion of the credit card information, as I cannot leak the entire data, it's too large, and this is the certain proof that i've hacked into VISA & Mastercard....

I'm also censoring the credit card information such as CC Number, Secret Code, Expiry date for security measures, I also edited the way the information will look, the original one looked bullshit.

TARGET: VISA & MASTERCARD

REASON: Curiosity & Challenge

Enjoy..."

Only recently, Global Payments, Inc. confirmed reports about a major cyber intrusion exposing the credit card numbers belonging to a whopping 1.5 million MasterCard and Visa customers. Reports thereafter highlighted that Visa Inc. dropped Global Payments from its list of approved service providers. However, it isn't clear at the moment, if the data that Reckz0r has now leaked is related to that.

The report further highlighted that Global Payments Inc. believed that the so-called Track 2 card data had been stolen during the breach, but card holders' names, addresses and social security numbers were not obtained. A person improperly using Track 2 information can transfer the account number and expiration date of a card to a magnetic stripe on a fraudulent card and then try to use it to make online purchases. The attempt could be blocked, however, if an online merchant asks for the CVV code, or the three or four digits usually located on the back of card.

Global Payments is one of dozens of companies that operate along the payment-processing chain. They are targeted by hackers due to the vast amount of sensitive financial information they handle. The breach was first reported by a blog on computer security and cybercrime, Krebs on Security, which said it could affect more than 10 million card holders.

Security breaches, such as the one mentioned above or the recent issue wherin, scores of LinkedIn users had their crucial details compromised are emerging as a worrying trend. It is now, more than ever, becoming a reliability issue about storing or using secure data online like credit card or bank cards for shopping, bill payments etc. Is the data really safe? Or is it merely fodder for a hacker to test his skills and threaten to share your information with the free world? Companies that store our data will surely need to beef up their current security as existing security measures are seemingly growing redundant. If large and age-old, trusted companies, like VISA or MasterCard have had data breaches, it begs the bigger question – how safe is safe?