Madison Square Garden and a small number of other major entertainment venues owned by Madison Square Garden Co. recently announced that their payment systems were hacked for a year-long period. Credit card information of customers who visited the affected establishments may have been breached. According to Gizmodo.com, Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall, Theater MSG, and Beacon Theater, in addition to Chicago Theater in Illinois, were all likely affected by the credit card breach. People who used credit cards to buy food, beverages, and merchandise between the period of November 9th 2015 through October 24th of 2016 could have been affected by the credit card breach. Not all credit cards that were used at these establishments during the time period in question are affected, but many could be.
The exact number of people affected by the MSG point-of-sale system hack is unknown, it is likely to be in the millions. The credit card breach was limited to payment systems within the affected establishments. It did not include online ticket sales or box office ticket sales.
The MSG Credit Card Hack
The hack was a program installed in the MSG payment processing system that granted unauthorized access to card data. The hack specifically searched for debit or credit card data as it was being routed through the payment system for authorization. The program was designed to steal credit-card numbers, expiration dates, cardholder names, and the all-important internal verification code associated with the magnetic strip on the credit card. This type of credit card data could be used to make replica cards or unauthorized online purchases.
After discovering the hack, Madison Square Garden took steps to put a stop to the payment system hack, and hired leading security firms to help address the problem. MSG, in conjunction with its security teams, has also taken steps to bulk up customer data security in response to the hack of its credit card reader system.
Chipped Credit Cards are Designed to Be Harder to Hack
All credit cards are now required to have a computer chip in them. These chips make it harder to hack the information associated with them. The new chipped cards will hopefully curb instances of credit card theft commonly carried out using credit card data skimmers, whether the skimmers are physical or digital in nature.
Too many individuals fall victim to credit card security hacks each year due to faults in the payment security systems of the establishments that they choose to patronize. The data breach attorneys at Revision Legal have helped many clients deal with issues involving credit card hacks and data security breaches. Revision Legal has worked with businesses of all sizes to assess and address these types of credit card breaches in all 50 states. If you are concerned that your business is facing some issues due to a credit card hack on your payment systems, you should work with an experienced data breach attorney like those at Revision Legal immediately. The team at Revision Legal is in your corner and has your back. Contact us using the form on this page or call us at 855-473-8474.
Photo credit to flickr user manuela.martin.