New credit card breach: Protect yourself.
By Clark Howard
Criminals recently took advantage of a weak link at a particular merchant processor, which is an intermediary service between customers and retailers that clears credit cards for purchases. In the course of five weeks, over 1.5 million credit card numbers were stolen from all major cardholders including Visa, American Express, MasterCard and Discover.
As best as anyone knows, no personal I.D. information was stolen such as name, date of birth, address or social security. They only got the credit card numbers. However, just having the numbers will allow the criminals to run charges to your account.
We are the last major country still using the 1960's-era credit card technology that allows cards and accounts to be stolen this easily! Most developed countries use a much more secure system called "chip and pin," which embeds a computer chip within the card, making it next to impossible to duplicate or use the card.
So what do you need to know to protect yourself?
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