Heartland Payment settles data breach, will pay Visa issuers up to $60M, shares soar
By APFriday, January 8, 2010
Heartland Payment to pay Visa issuers up to $60M
PRINCETON, N.J. — Heartland Payment Systems, which processes credits card payments, said Friday it will pay up to $60 million to Visa credit and debit card issuers to settle claims over a 2008 data breach.
The money will help cover losses the Visa issuers incurred after hackers installed spying software on Heartland’s computer network in late 2008. The intrusion affected the system used to process Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover Card transactions.
At least 80 percent of the eligible card issuers must approve the payment and sign a release of liability. Visa will notify eligible issuers in the coming days about the program and how to participate. It will send formal offers Jan. 14. Eligible issuers will have until Jan. 29 to opt in.
Heartland Payment, based in Princeton, N.J., said it lost more in the third quarter than it expected because of the settlements. The net loss of $37.1 million amounted to 99 cents per share.
On Nov. 3, Before some settlement offers were made, Heartland reported a net loss of $13.6 million, or 36 cents per share. In December, Heartland announced it would pay American Express Co. $3.6 million.
A year earlier, the company earned $13.4 million, or 35 cents per share.
Heartland shares rose $1.78, or 13.5 percent, to close at $15.
Tags: Computer And Data Security, Computing And Information Technology, New Jersey, North America, Princeton, United States
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January 9, 2010: 11:28 am
Anyone else here reading “I.T. WARS”? I had to read parts of this book as part of my employee orientation at a new job. The book talks about a whole new culture as being necessary – an eCulture – for a true understanding of security, being that most identity/data breaches are due to simple human errors. It has great chapters on security, as well as risk, content management, project management, acceptable use, policies, and so on. Just Google “IT WARS” – check out a couple links down and read the interview with the author David Scott. (Full title is “I.T. WARS: Managing the Business-Technology Weave in the New Millennium”). |
Janice Gaines