We have seen that the frequency of hacks and exploits has increased drastically in recent times. Especially, it has become common to see data which is personal or confidential shared online. Recently, we saw that a famous US chain having retail stores, gas stations and other stores were compromised. This meant that the card details of more than half the US population were leaked. Now, a similar incident has been noticed and this time Mastercard is involved.
Mastercard Priceless Specials is a new program which is being run by Mastercard, the biggest card provider based out of the US. Basically, Mastercard Priceless Specials is a loyalty program run by the company to give some perks and benefits to members who are using their cards for a long time. It is known that 90,000 members of the MasterCard Priceless Specials have their data shared online. It is also revealed that these were German users and not in the US. This is after a breach was discovered in the program on August 20. The data has been found on the website named ‘Have I been Pwned’ as seen on September 1.
These data contained extremely detailed information such as customers’ names, payment card numbers, partial credit card data, IP addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, gender, and dates of birth. Have I been Pwned says that “89,338 German Mastercard customers with “Priceless Specials” bonus program accounts, with 46% of addresses part of this breach already having been added to the platform as part of the previous database dumps”.
Talking about ‘Have I Been Pwned’ website, it is a database where users can check if their details are compromised or not. This website is also notifying users in their database that their data is compromised. For those who have opted not to be notified, the website is letting them know by checking themselves on the website.