I one single slip by a third party processor, one in each seven US Mastercard Accounts was exposed to possible identity theft as detailed at Security Focus. Fortunately the amount actually compromised will be much less. What makes this different than many other similiar glitches is that it exposed information for multiple branded cards issues on different financial institutions and organizations. Issues like this will continue to grow.
The day is coming where greater checks, perhaps pin numbers confirmed via independant routing for example will have to become common-place on purchases. Likewise with the advent of automated fingerprinting identification, I think prints or other equivalents must soon be required for the issuing of credit. Merely having my personal information and card numbers cannot be sufficient to allow access to my accounts or the granting of new credit.
