Heartland Payment Systems

Heartland Payment Systems, Inc. (NYSE: HPY) provides debit, prepaid, and credit card processing, online payments, check processing, payroll services and a growing line of industry solutions for small to mid-sized merchants. Heartland Payment Systems is currently the fifth largest credit card processor in the United States and the 9th in the world. Founded by Robert O. Carr in 1997, Heartland Payment Systems is headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey. There are also offices nationally in Texas, Colorado, Tennessee, Oregon, Indiana, and Ohio.

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Transaction volume

Heartland Payment Systems processes transactions for more than 250,000 business locations in the United States.[1] Heartland Payment Systems currently processes more than 11 million transactions a day and more than $120 billion in transactions a year. Heartland focuses its efforts on small to mid-sized businesses.[2]

Security breach

On January 20, 2009 Heartland announced that it had been "the victim of a security breach within its processing system in 2008".[1] The data stolen included the digital information encoded onto the magnetic stripe built into the backs of credit and debit cards; with that data, thieves can fashion counterfeit credit cards by imprinting the same stolen information onto fabricated cards.[2]

Albert Gonzalez was indicted in August 2009 on charges of masterminding the attack.[3]

Re-validation

On May 1, 2009, Visa and Heartland issued a statement that Heartland successfully validated its compliance with PCI DSS and has been returned to Visa's list of PCI DSS Validated Service Providers.[4]

Several days later, on May 8, 2009, Gartner Analyst Avivah Litan stated that Heartland "is basically leading the way for the rest of the industry." She also noted that its plan for end-to-end encryption will be the first effort of its kind in the US.[5]

Heartland Payment System's Web Presence

In addition to its corporate website at www.HeartlandPaymentSystems.com, Heartland hosts several websites designed to educate business owners about payments processing:

End-to-end encryption/Data Security: http://www.E3secure.com / http://www.E3secure.com/blog

Merchant Bill of Rights: http://www.MerchantBillofRights.org

Cost of a Burger: http://www.CostofaBurger.com

Heartland is also active in the social media space and can be found on the following sites:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/HeartlandHPY

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/heartland-payment-systems

Twitter: http://twitter.com/heartlandhpy

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/HeartlandHPY

References

  1. ^ a b "Heartland Payment Systems Uncovers Malicious Software In Its Processing System". January 20, 2008. http://www.2008breach.com/Information20090120.asp. Retrieved 2009-01-21. 
  2. ^ a b Brian Krebs (January 20, 2009). "Payment Processor Breach May Be Largest Ever". Washington Post. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/01/payment_processor_breach_may_b.html?hpid=topnews. 
  3. ^ Hacker Charged With Heartland, Hannaford Breaches - wired.com - August 17, 2009
  4. ^ Heartland Payment Systems Returns to Visa's List of PCI DSS Validated Service Providers
  5. ^ Security breach has cost Heartland £8.4m so far, Computerworld UK

External links