Visa drops US payment handler after breach

Global Payments on Monday said that Visa has dropped the US-based payment processor after data from as many as 1.5 million credit cards was looted from its system. The word came as credit card titans Visa and MasterCard scrambled to thwart cyber crooks who snatched a massive trove of valuable account data. The card industry was jolted by news last week that data from as many as 10 million cards was stolen. Global Payments said however that "less that 1.5 million accounts" in North America were hit by "unauthorized access" to its processing system. Information stolen was from credit card magnetic strip "tracks" known to include credit card numbers, verification codes, and expiration dates. "The investigation to date has revealed that Track Two card data may have been stolen, but that cardholder names, addresses and social security numbers were not obtained by the criminals," Global Payments said in a release. "Based on the forensic analysis to date, network monitoring and additional security measures, the company believes that this incident is contained." Global Payments chief executive Paul Garcia said in a conference call that the company was still processing Visa transactions and expected to regain its trusted status after fixing compliance issues. Analysts said they were awaiting more news from the latest breach. "Sounds like there's a lot more going on out there than the payment industry and law enforcement have nailed down and are prepared to talk about," said Gartner analyst Avivah Litan.