Data Breach Exposes Millions of Card Numbers

Monday the Massachusetts Bankers Association (MBA) issued a press release announcing a major data breach at what Visa and MasterCard said was an unnamed "major retailer."  The details were far worse than the original news, though.

A security breach at an East Coast supermarket chain exposed more than 4 million card numbers and led to 1,800 cases of fraud, the Hannaford Bros. grocery chain announced Monday.

Hannaford said credit and debit card numbers were stolen during the card authorization process and about 4.2 million unique card numbers were exposed, placing the case among the largest data breaches ever.

The breach affected all of its 165 stores in the Northeast, 106 Sweetbay stores in Florida and a smaller number of independent groceries that sell Hannaford products.


Although Hannaford recommended that customers should carefully watch their Visa and MasterCard accounts, they didn't announce the typical one year of free credit monitoring - yet.
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