July 26, 2005 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Reports say that CardSystems (cardsystems.com), the company that recently exposed approximately 40 million records to potential identity theft, is on the brink of financial disaster.
CardSystems CEO John Perry, recently confirmed to Congress that the company situation was dire.
The news comes after Visa and American Express announced last week that they would cancel their contracts with CardSystems effective October 31, 2005. Mastercard has placed an August 31, 2005 deadline on CardSystems to implement an upgraded security plan.
Just last year, Visa completed an audit of CardSystems that found it was in compliance with its Cardholder Information Security Program. However, since then a new standard, Payment Card Industry Data Security, had been implemented. Visa and American Express have both adopted the new standard.
The CardSystems breach exposed data, including holder names, banks and account numbers. Other sensitive data such as social security numbers and birthdates were not accessed.
