Yet another company has reported a credit card breach. The popular Asian restaurant chain P.F. Chang’s has reported that it’s systems were hacked and the hack goes back as far as September 18th of 2013 and continued until June 11th.
When these data breaches occur VISA, MasterCard and the other card providers react by issuing private Compromised Account Management System (CAMS) alerts to banks that issue their cards. CAMS alerts is intended to notify those institutions of specific cards affected in a breach. That institutions can then re-issue the cards or take additional steps to manage potential fraud on those accounts.
Visa issued a new CAMS alert on June 17th letting the bank know that hundreds of cards had been exposed in the recent breach. The bank purchased more than a dozen stolen cards from an underground store exclusively selling cards stolen in the P.F. Chang’s break-in. All the cards the bank purchased were listed in the CAMS alert issued by VISA.
Over the nine months that the breach took place it is believed that over 7 million cards were compromised.
Breaking It Down– Black people eat at PF Chang’s. I know I do. And I know I am demanding a new card with the Pin and Chip technology. The consumer is the ultimate victim when these breaches occur. We are the ones who have to fight with the card companies and the banks about fraudulent charges. And what about our credit records? My question is how can the hackers beat so many companies at this game? This is an institutional problem that is a cancer on the financial industry. These companies are paying hackers to get back information. So the profit incentive is re-enforced by their actions.
This is a breach affecting 7 million cards. How fast can these companies replace 7 million cards. Why hurry? These cards have been floating around on criminal websites for nine month and I am certain there are plenty of phony charges that are being disputed. Black people included in that group. So the question is really how much money are these companies going to lose before the they figure out how to beat these hackers?