Possible Largest Ever Data Breach.

James

Payment processor's security breach may affect up to 100 million transactions.

Within this story is the following:

The Royal Bank of Scotland Group, announced that its systems had been breached by unknown intruders, resulting in the compromise of personal information belonging to about 1.5 million card holders

Full article click here.

Browntoa

might explain why the Natwest/RBS online bankings crashed...people logging on to check

Merlinexcalibur

Makes a change, then, from banks dumping our data into wheelie bins round the back of their buildings. Honestly, you couldn't make up half of what has been reported with 'data breaches'. Or, maybe, that's where these 'intruders' got the details from in the first place. I'm being sarcastic BTW but with a very cynical eye on the state of 'data protection' and what we were all led to believe was 'fool proof' and 'safe in their hands'. Yeah, like dumping it in bins like I said.

PROLIANT

Looks like they need a better intrusion detection and prevention appliance on their corporate network.

MPH80

Except ... it's not credit cards - it's payroll and gift cards - and it affects the US rather than the UK ...

More details on a more prompt report:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/29/rbs_worldpay_breach/

Yes - it's concerning - but it's also not affecting us directly.

It's also worth noting that worldpay aren't considered (yet) to be PCI DSS compliant ... now that's more concerning because the PCI DSS requirements aren't that stringent!

M.

Jemma-T

There's a 'biggest data breach' almost weekly and I'd guess the biggest are always hushed up as much as possible.

Bottom line, do your very best to protect your privacy as thee's not much you can do once you give out your info.

Being ex-directory, destroying (go paper-free!) any paper bills, never confirming who you are over the phone (unless you know for sure who it is calling), limiting who you give your data to and other simple acts can help.

The good news is these breaches of privacy mean very very little IMO because much of the data is out there already and there's SO much data it can't be easy looking for juicy stuff to profit from.