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More than five million Visa and MasterCard accounts throughout the United States were accessed after the computer system at a third party processor was hacked into, according to representatives for the card associations.
Early indications were that none of the information, which would include credit card numbers, was used in a fraudulent way, according to the representatives.
The associations said they could not provide a timeline of when the breach took place or details on how it was accomplished because it involved a third party processor used by merchants and not Visa or MasterCard systems. The associations said they could not disclose the name of that processor.
Visa and MasterCard are associations made up of financial institutions who issue the cards.
MasterCard said it began to notify its members the week of February 3 that more than two million MasterCard accounts had been broken into after the processor told it about the problem, MasterCard spokeswoman Sharon Gamsin told Reuters.
About 3.4 million Visa accounts also have been accessed in the incident, according to spokesman John Abrams.
"Visa's fraud team immediately notified all affected card issuing financial institutions and is working with the third-party payment card processor to protect against the threat of a future intrusion," the association said in a statement.
Neither Visa nor MasterCard would disclose which institution were involved.
"This is not something regional, it was throughout the nation and could be any bank," Abrams said.
Both associations said no customer would be liable for any charges incurred as a result of fraud. They said the processor was working with law enforcement officials on the matter.