Security News > 2008 > December > RBS WorldPay Breach Rings Alarm Bells About Acquirer Security

http://www.digitaltransactions.net/newsstory.cfm?newsid=2025 Digital Transactions News December 23, 2008 The latest data-breach battleground has shifted to merchant-acquiring and prepaid card territory. Atlanta-based RBS WorldPay, a big acquirer owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland Group that also provides prepaid card programs, late Tuesday afternoon reported a breach of its computer system that may have compromised personal information on about 1.5 million cardholders, including the Social Security numbers of 1.1 million consumers. The data leak affected prepaid cardholders “and other individuals,” RBS said in a news release, but the company didn’t give a breakdown other than to say the cardholders held payroll and open-loop gift cards. “Personal information associated with certain payroll cards may have been improperly accessed,” the release says. “PINs for all PIN-enabled cards have been or are being reset.” Actual fraud to date involves only 100 cards. The company did not give a loss figure. Formerly known as RBS Lynk, RBS WorldPay said it discovered the breach Nov. 10 and notified law-enforcement agencies and banking regulators “shortly thereafter,” according the release. But the company didn’t say why it waited until Dec. 23 to report the breach publicly. Spokespersons did not return calls from Digital Transactions News. Nor did the news release say how the breach happened or when it began. “RBS WorldPay has urgently taken a number of important steps to mitigate risk in response to this situation,” the release says without giving details. RBS WorldPay said it has notified affected cardholders and posted information on its Web site. This latest breach represents yet another worrisome development in the payment card industry’s unending war with computer intruders. While most of the attention in the past two years has focused on retailers’ lapses in securing credit and debit card data, the RBS WorldPay breach serves as a reminder of how hackers can penetrate the computer systems of a major acquirer and processor. “It’s very bad news,” says Avivah Litan, a technology and security analyst with Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc. She notes that unlike retailers’ computer systems, processors’ systems connect directly to the networks of Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. “An attacker that breaks into a processor conceivably can get into the heart of the system,” she says, adding that a fraud-intelligence executive at a Gartner client company recently told her that attacks on acquirers and processors are increasing. [...]

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