Security Alert - Heartland Payment Systems Announces Data Breach

Heartland Payments Systems provides debit and credit card processing services for approximately 250,000 businesses nationwide. Businesses such as restaurants and pay-at-the pump gas stations, to name just a couple.

Heartland is not a vendor of The Bank of Washington or associated with The Bank of Washington in any way. Rather they process credit card and debit card transactions for merchants that you may do business with. They have announced that sometime last year, their processing system was breached resulting in the compromise of cardholder names, card numbers, and expiration dates on an undisclosed number of accounts. They have confirmed that it did not include cardholder’s Social Security numbers, unencrypted personal identification numbers (PIN), addresses or telephone numbers, or merchant data.

Please be assured that if The Bank of Washington receives information which would impact you or your accounts with us, we will contact you immediately. We also urge you to always review your monthly bank and credit card statements and notify us immediately if you identify any unusual activity.

For additional details on the breach, Heartland has created a website... www.2008breach.com