First there was $350,000 stolen from New Yorkers by employee's at an India call center, then 700,000 customers put at risk by PNC, Bank of America, Wachovia and Commerce bank and then 3.9 million Citigroup customers put at risk by a lost computer backup tape, now we have 40 million Master card accounts being stolen.

Fox News

A security breach of customer information at a credit card-processing company has exposed as many as 40 million cardholders of all brands to potential fraud, MasterCard International Inc. said Friday. The credit card giant said its security division detected multiple instances of fraud that tracked back to CardSystems Solutions Inc. of Tucson, Ariz., which processes transactions for banks and merchants.

...

CardSystems said it was hit by a computer virus that captured customer data for the purpose of fraud.

The breach appears to be the largest ever involving financial data, said David Sobel, general counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

"The steady stream of these disclosures shows the pressing need for regulation of the industry both in terms of limitation in the amount of personal information that companies collect and also liability when these kinds of disclosures occur," Sobel said.

That the breach involved a third party also "indicates that this is a shadowy industry where the consumer never really knows who is going to be handling and using their personal information," he added. "Presumably, the affected consumer thought they were dealing with MasterCard."

Hey, I have an idea! Let's increase our outsourcing of people's personal information to foreign countries! The only good thing about this story is that the company is in America and can be targeted for legal action. If this happens overseas to an outsourced third party or foreign based company good luck on being notified or having any ability to take action.