Hypercom and Heartland Payment Systems have announced a strategic relationship to deliver integrated, high-security payment systems to retailers nationwide and implement Heartland’s end-to-end encryption E3™ solution. READ MORE

Based on an interview with Heartland Payment Systems CEO Robert Carr, Rachael King writes for BusinessWeek about lessons learned during the Heartland data breach that began in 2008 and was discovered and announced in January 2009.

Heartland Payment Systems has announced that yesterday it successfully completed the first phase of its end-to-end encryption pilot project. According to the company, "this first step involved the transmission of live AES (Advanced Encryption Standard)-encrypted card transactions from a merchant to Heartland’s processing platform. AES is the highest level of encryption and is currently on track to replace DES (Data Encryption Standard) and Triple DES as the desired standard for sensitive data."

Earlier this month Heartland announced it was working with Voltage Security to develop its end-to-end encryption approach. READ MORE

Heartland Payment Systems has selected Voltage Security as a partner to develop end-to-end encryption (E3) software specifically suited to payments processing.

“Heartland is developing a complete end-to-end encryption solution designed to protect cardholder data at all stages of a transaction – from card swipe through delivery to the card brands,” said Bob Carr, Heartland’s chairman and chief executive officer. “Together with Voltage, we are developing a comprehensive solution that currently does not exist.” READ MORE

Heartland Payment Systems has announced financial results for the first quarter - including announcing a $12.6 million provision (pre-tax) for various expenses and accruals that were attributable to the processing system intrusion Heartland experienced in 2008. The company has recently returned to Visa’s and MasterCard’s lists of PCI-DSS Validated Service Providers.

Heartland Payment Systems has announced that "it has formed an internal department dedicated exclusively to the development of end-to-end encryption to protect merchant and consumer data used in financial transactions. For the past year, Robert O. Carr, Heartland's chairman and chief executive officer, has been advocating for payments industry adoption of this technology - which will protect data at rest as well as data in motion - as an improvement for payment transaction security." READ MORE

Heartland Payment Systems issued a press release today saying that it had "added more than 400 merchants to its client base in the past few days - exceeding results for the same period from last year" - and including a statement from founder, chairman and CEO Robert O. Carr on the response his organization has made to the announcement earlier this week of a payment card data breach at Heartland. READ MORE

Eric Dash and Brad Stone report for the New York Times on the payment card data breach announced yesterday by Heartland Payment Systems. The compromise may have occurred as early as last May but wasn't detected until late last fall.

The Heartland breach also showed that in spite of the adoption of more stringent standards and tougher oversight by banks and credit card companies, consumers are still vulnerable."

Heartland Payment Systems has announced it has learned it was the victim of a security breach within its processing system in 2008. Heartland says it "believes the intrusion is contained." The company has created a website for "to provide information about this incident and advises cardholders to examine their monthly statements closely and report any suspicious activity to their card issuers."

Brian Krebs reports for the Washington Post that the breach "may have led to the compromise of more than 100 million credit and debit card transactions."

The data stolen includes the digital information encoded onto the magnetic stripe built into the backs of credit and debit cards. Armed with this data, thieves can fashion counterfeit credit cards by imprinting the same stolen information onto fabricated cards.

Heartland Payment Systems has closed the acquisition of Chockstone, a privately held provider of gift card programs and loyalty solutions. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. READ MORE

Heartland Payment Systems has announced it has integrated alphanumeric remittance ID tagging into its remote deposit capture solution – making it even easier for businesses to efficiently handle check payments. READ MORE

Heartland Payment Systems has announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the Network Services business of Alliance Data Systems Corporation. 'According to the most recent Nilson report, Alliance Data’s Network Services is one of the industry’s 20 largest payment processors, handling over $17 billion of total annual bank card volume and 604 million transactions in 2007.' READ MORE

Heartland Payment Systems has announced it has acquired a majority interest in Collective Point of Sale Solutions Ltd, a growing Canadian provider of payment processing services and secure point-of-sale solutions. Under the agreement, Heartland will maintain the CollectivePOS brand in Canada. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.