News

Monday press conference will address Global Payments data breach

April 1, 2012

Global Payments announced it will hold a live press conference Monday, April 2 at 8 AM EDT to answer questions about a data breach the company experienced early in March and confirmed late last Friday. Individuals who want to listen to the press conference should go to globalpaymentsinc.com, navigate to the investor relations page and click the webcast link on that page.

Alternatively, callers in North America can gain access to the conference by dialing 1-888-895-3550, then entering the passcode GPN; callers outside North America may dial 1-706-758-8809, then enter the same GPN passcode.

It is likely that the company will seek to do intensive damage control in advance of its Q3 earnings conference call this Wednesday, April 4 at 5 PM EDT. (That webcast also can be accessed at the Global Payments website.)

Restoring investor confidence will be a priority for executives at the Fortune 1000 company. Global Payments' share price fell sharply on Friday after the company announced the data breach, which some industry watchers say could involve as many as 10 million credit and debit cards from all the major bankcard brands. The stock dropped about 9 percent before trading of shares was suspended for the day.

UPDATE 8:46 PM EST: 

In a news release this evening, Global Payments provided new information on the data breach as follows:

"The company believes that the affected portion of its processing system is confined to North America and less than 1,500,000 card numbers may have been exported. The investigation to date has revealed that Track 2 card data may have been stolen, but that cardholder names, addresses and social security numbers were not obtained by the criminals. Based on the forensic analysis to date, network monitoring and additional security measures, the company believes that this incident is contained."

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