I find the 130,000,000 number that is being bandied about to be rather low for what had been happening: Heartland processes about 100,000,000 transactions per month.
The indictment stated that they broke in during December 2007. Heartland was contacted by Visa Security in October 2008. This means that the hackers were sniffing transactions inside the datacenter for 10 months. Since all transactions inside their datacenter were in the clear, I suspect the number actually acquired by the hackers is about 10x what the official news is stating.
Maybe I'm getting too cynical in my old age, but Heartland released the news of the attack during Obama's inauguration, hoping it would get lost in the noise.
The indictment stated that they broke in during December 2007. Heartland was contacted by Visa Security in October 2008. This means that the hackers were sniffing transactions inside the datacenter for 10 months. Since all transactions inside their datacenter were in the clear, I suspect the number actually acquired by the hackers is about 10x what the official news is stating.
http://www.storefrontbacktalk.com/securityfraud/heartland-sn...
Maybe I'm getting too cynical in my old age, but Heartland released the news of the attack during Obama's inauguration, hoping it would get lost in the noise.
Some more reading: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/heartland-breach-co...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/20/heartland_payment_br...