After mass security lapse, RBS Worldpay gets IRS contract
No bad deed goes unrewarded
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RBS Worldpay - the electronic payment processor that admitted it exposed sensitive financial records for millions of customers - has been awarded a contract by the Internal Revenue Service to process tax return payments next year.
The company, which is a division of the Royal Bank of Scotland, will begin processing taxpayers' credit card payments starting in 2010, according to Brian Krebs's Security Fix blog. In return, RBS Worldpay will take a "convenience fee" amounting to 1.95 percent of the amount a taxpayer owes.
Last month, Visa yanked RBS Worldpay from its list of processors it considers compliant with industry-mandated standards for data security. In December, the company admitted that a hacker break in exposed 1.5 million payroll and gift card holders and about 1.1 million social security records. Although the breach occurred in early November, the company waited until two days before Christmas to fess up, presumably to release the bad news when it is least likely to be noticed.
An IRS spokesman told Security Fix the company wouldn't be permitted to process taxpayers' payments until it proved it was once again compliant with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards. It will also have to pass an IRS security audit. ®
COMMENTS
Imagine for a moment that...
all that taxpayer data got hacked. All that information out in the wild. There would then be no reason to assume that government departments were illegally sharing data or that the IRS had previously been hacked. What better way, I ask, is there to cover up data loss than let a foreign company that doesn't meet industry standard for data protection have all your data.
I LOVE a conspiracy theory.
mine's the coat with the tinfoil hat in the pocket
Hasn't this been tried before?
An ineffective government burdened by huge debts and an antiquated financial system unable to manage them, decides to subcontract out the collecting of taxes...
France 1789
RE: To me ... to you
well, that's how the banks seem to work... although I'm not sure about the proving they are capable of performing the task bit...
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