Recriminations flew on Monday over the biggest data breach in US history as the theft of private information on more than 40 million credit card holders spread to Japan and Hong Kong.
In Japan on Monday, financial company UFJ Card Co. said some of its credit card holders had fallen victim to illegal transactions ensuing from the data theft.
Other Japanese credit card firms linked to MasterCard, including issuers of Nippon Shinpan, DC Card, OMC Card, UC Card and NICOS Card, also reported that their customer information might have been leaked because of the breach.
In Hong Kong, Standard Chartered, HSBC, Bank of China, Hang Seng Bank and Bank of East Asia said Visa and MasterCard had informed them that private information on a "small number" of their customers had been leaked.
The massive security breach could also affect as many as 127,000 Australian card holders, reports said Tuesday.
In Australia, about 50,000 Mastercard and another 77,000 Visa card holders are believed to have been at risk, ABC radio reported.
However, the banks issuing the cards said that most of those affected have already been issued with replacements after irregular transactions were picked up as early as last December.
"We've been through a process over the last six months of alerting the Visa and Mastercard schemes in our region and in the US about the issue," a spokesman for ANZ Bank, Paul Edwards, told ABC.
Singapore at risk
Meanwhile, at least 20,000 credit-card holders in Singapore could be exposed to fraud risk, news reports said.
The Singapore accounts affected include about 10,000 Visa cards and another 9,000 MasterCards, issued by Singapore banks, including the United Overseas Bank (UOB), the Development Bank of Singapore (DBS) and the Overseas Chinese Banking Corporation.
All three said they would replace compromised credit cards for free.
"We have identified the cards at risk and have been contacting our card-holders to inform them that we will be replacing their cards," a UOB spokesman was quoted as saying.
DBS has delayed billing some of its card-holders.
The breach occurred when "an unauthorized individual" infiltrated the network of CardSystems Solutions in Arizona.
CardSystems said that it had informed the US FBI on May 23 of a potential security problem.
Visa most affected
Some 22 million affected customers are Visa holders and nearly 14 million are with MasterCard, according to company figures. American Express and Discover holders were also hit, but in far smaller numbers.
MasterCard and Visa said that CardSystems had flouted their security strictures, but played down the risk to consumers.
"We work very hard to ensure that account numbers are kept as securely as possible," Visa International spokeswoman Farnaz Khadem said.
"But when theft does occur, there are multiple systems in place to ensure that fraud does not take place," she said.
The case was the latest and largest in a series of security breaches of customer data that open up the possibility of identity theft in the US.
Citigroup said last week it lost computer tapes containing personal banking data on 3.9 million customers.
Last month, police said arrests had been made in the theft of data of more than 700,000 account holders held in four major US banks.
Democratic Senator Charles Schumer, who is sponsoring comprehensive legislation to deal with identity theft, said the CardSystems incident was the last straw.
"Consumers' personal and financial data has become the gold of the 21st century and we need to protect it accordingly," he said.
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