While it was initially reported that about 1.5 million credit and debit card accounts were exposed to a
data breach of Global Payments Inc., a new report claims even more accounts were hacked than initially believed.
According to the Wall Street Journal, it's estimated that roughly 7 million users' financial and personal information were exposed during a recent breach of the company.
The newspaper states that the newly revealed information about the broader data breach means hackers likely had access to accountholders' records since spring 2011.
Global Payments has yet to divulge how the data breach occurred, but investigators continue to look into the matter, the paper reports. Visa and MasterCard, which work with Global Payments, stated they believe the breach began in June of last year.
A Nilson report notes more than $120 billion in transactions of Visa and MasterCard products were handled by Global Payments in 2011.
Ondrej Krehel, chief information security officer for
Identity Theft 911, has a blog about the issues consumers face when their personal or medical data is exposed in a breach.
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