The credit card industry has been rocked further with the news that the number of accounts that have been compromised by a hacker has grown to about eight million.
CNN reports that Discover Financial Services and American Express yesterday joined the list of credit card companies saying a hacker breached a security system of a company that processes transactions on behalf of merchants.
Discover and American Express would not disclose how many accounts were involved. In a statement, MasterCard put the overall security breach at about eight million accounts, including 2.2 million of its own cards. Visa said 3.4 million of its cards were affected.
All four credit card companies declined to name the company whose security was hacked.
None of the original set of compromised Visa cards had been used fraudulently, Visa spokesperson John Abrams said on Monday. A MasterCard spokesperson could not say whether any of its cards had been used fraudulently. American Express said there has been no fraud.
CNN says the affected accounts make up almost 1% of the 574 million Visa and MasterCard accounts in the US.
Consumer advocates recommend that people be vigilant in checking credit card statements for any charges they did not make.
The FBI is aiding in the investigation.
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