One of the largest thefts of credit card information in history has been recently discovered involving up to ten million MasterCard and Visa credit cards.  As with all of your personal information, you are only as safe as the places that have your personal and financial information.  In this case, a credit card payment processor, which is a company that processes charges after they have been charged at a retail establishment.  This is not the first time that a credit card payment processor has been hacked.  In 2008 millions of credit cards were compromised when Heartland Systems was hacked.  In the present case, the information apparently was stolen between January 21st and February 25th, but was only recently discovered.  People whose credit card numbers were stolen will be receiving notices of the breach of security.

TIP

Always review in detail your credit card statement every month to make sure that your credit card was not used for unauthorized charges.  If you find any, contact your credit card company immediately to have the fraudulent charges taken off your card and get a new card number.