Mastercard drops Global Payments from PCI approved vendors list

Mastercard has become the latest credit card company to drop payment processor Global Payments from its list of approved service providers, following its data breach earlier this year.

As reported by IT Pro, Global Payments confirmed last month that up to 1.5 million credit card numbers had been stolen following a security attack on its systems in North America.

Up to seven million credit cards could have been affected by the breach.

Global Payments is responsible for processing payments for several credit card companies, including Visa, Mastercard and American Express.

The breach prompted Visa to remove the firm from its list of Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliant vendors, and now its rival Mastercard has followed suit.

Mastercard confirmed the move in a statement to the Wall Street Journal.

"As a result of the preliminary investigation findings regarding the [Global Payments] breach, MasterCard has removed Global Payments from our list of PCI compliant service providers," the statement said.

Earlier this week, Global Payments issued an update about the breach, stating that "some card brands" had withdrawn its PCI DSS compliant status.

"They have requested we re-validate our PCI status, which we will do following our current investigation," the statement said. "We anticipate that we will be reinstated to those lists."

The Wall Street Journal has also reported that many more card details may have been compromised than first thought.

Quoting sources familiar with the situation, it is claimed that up to seven million credit cards could have been affected by the breach.

Global Payments declined to comment on the claims, except to state that it was still investigating the cause of the breach.

"In any matter of this nature, the card brands cast a wide net to protect consumers and we supply as much information as possible to assist in the course of the investigation," said the company in a statement.