Yawn.....Another multi-million dollar data breach

[richlevy]

From here

The revelation this week by Heartland Payment Systems, the sixth-largest payment processor in the U.S., that criminals had secretly installed spying software on its computer network could go down as one of the biggest data breaches on record.

Heartland says it doesn't know yet how much data was stolen, since the malicious program was capturing data as it flowed across the network, and in that type of intrusion it's hard to figure out how much data was snatched in transit by the interlopers. But the potential damage could be very large because Heartland processes 100 million transactions a month, mostly for small to medium-sized businesses.

Sources tell CBS News that hackers cracked Heartland's computers as far back as May of last year. But it wasn't until last week, after being alerted to suspicious activity by Visa and MasterCard, that the company uncovered malicious software in its system.

I thought that the TJX/T.J. Maxx/ Marshall's breach would be the worst ever, but it looks like I was wrong.

The TJX breach occurred with a WEP wireless crack.

There, investigators now believe, hackers pointed a telescope-shaped antenna toward the store and used a laptop computer to decode data streaming through the air between hand-held price-checking devices, cash registers and the store's computers. That helped them hack into the central database of Marshalls' parent, TJX Cos. in Framingham, Mass., to repeatedly purloin information about customers.

It will be interesting to see how Heartland was compromised since they obviously don't use cash registers and scanners.