Mastercard notifies German, Belgian authorities on loyalty program data breach

On August 19, 2019, Mastercard noticed that data from its ‘Priceless Specials’ loyalty program had been released on the internet. The breach revealed information such as names, payment card numbers, email addresses, home addresses, phone numbers, gender, and dates of birth, the Belgian Data Protection Authority said. 

Mastercard has informed those affected by the incident, but did not provide the number of those affected. However, Heise Media reported that it saw the Excel spreadsheets containing lists of roughly 90,000 and 84,000 rows that were distributed on the internet after Mastercards Priceless Specials loyalty program was breached, according to Bleeping Computer.

Mastercard started an investigation immediately after learning of the data leak and requested all sites where the info was hosted to also delete the personal information belonging to its Priceless Specials customers. All potentially impacted clients have been informed about their info being leaked in the incident as Mastercard confirmed to the Belgian DPA.