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A Visa network update briefly prevented some customers in the United States from using their credit and debit cards to pay for purchases today.

A company representative told the Associated Press that the outage was caused by a recent system update, but that the system was now operating normally. The 40-minute outage began at 11:40 a.m. PT, an unidentified banking industry source told the AP.

A Visa customer told CNET that he tried to use his credit card to pay for a fill-up at a Boston-area gas station around 12:30 p.m. PT but couldn't complete … Read more

Global Payments, the processor blamed for a Visa and MasterCard data breach last week, is likely to be able to manage its financial hit related to beefing up security.

Last week, Visa and MasterCard warned banks about a data breach. In addition, Global Payments issued a statement confirming the data breach. Global Payments said the company's security systems picked up the threat in March and contacted law enforcements. The company will hold a conference call Monday at 8 a.m. EDT.

It's unclear how many accounts were compromised, but 10 million is the largest reported number thus far. … Read more

Some 50,000 credit and debit cardholders may have their information exposed following a security breach at Global Payments, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The full extent of the breach is still unknown, the Journal reported today, and it's unclear whether fraudulent charges on cardholders have been racked up yet.

Global Payments later released a statement saying the breach didn't involve its merchants or their customers. The company said it had determined early this month that card data may have been accessed, and alerted law enforcement.

"It is reassuring that our security processes detected an intrusion,&… Read more

A decision on what will be the next SIM card technology for smartphones and other portable devices has been delayed following a spat between competing hardware makers.

In a statement today, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) said that it is postponing its decision on what's come to be known as nano-SIM until the end of May.

"The committee decided to delay any vote on the subject in the interest of trying to achieve a broad industry consensus, which is in keeping with the preferred decision making process at ETSI," the group said in a statement.

The … Read more

No hilarious jokes or personal anecdotes today. This is time-sensitive, so I'll cut right to the chase.

Today only, and while supplies last, Amazon has the refurbished Kindle Fire tablet for $139 shipped.

I'm reluctant to even post that deal, because I suspect it'll sell out before the morning is over -- heck, before I finish typing this paragraph. That's an insanely good deal on one of the best 7-inch tablets to date.

Update: Well, kudos to Amazon for having enough inventory to last most of the day...but as I expected, the refurbished Fires are … Read more

Since PayPal launched its new payment service "PayPal Here" last week, it has raked in thousands of sign-ups. In fact, in the first 24 hours of its introduction, the online payment company says it was getting 1,000 sign-ups per hour.

"To say there's been some interest in our new offering would be an understatement," PayPal spokesman Anuj Nayar said in a statement today. "Clearly there's a need for a secure, global solution that provides small businesses the flexibility to get paid anytime, anywhere, any way."

The idea of PayPal Here actually … Read more

Barnes & Noble hasn't officially dropped the price of its $99 Nook Simple Touch e-reader, but you can save $20 until March 18 if you buy it with a MasterCard. The deal is available at all Barnes & Noble's stores nationwide and online at BN.com and also applies to the Nook Color, which can be had for $149.

The Nook Simple Touch is an e-ink e-reader that competes with Amazon's Kindle Touch, which starts at $99 for the ad-supported model. Both products have received Editors' Choice awards from CNET. Amazon sells the standard, non-touch-screen version of … Read more

Toshiba has announced new SDXC and SDHC cards that support the UHS-1 high-speed interface--and the new Exceria brand name to go along with them.

The Exceria name is meant "to reflect a combination of 'excellent' and 'experience,'" Toshiba said in a statement this week, but I wouldn't have guessed that without being told. Too bad Sony got there first with Xperia.

The new cards come in three varieties. At the top of the heap are models that will arrive in July with read speeds of 95MBps and write speeds of 90MBps; they'll come in 8GB, 16GB, … Read more

When the Antisec branch of Anonymous hacked into security think tank Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor, at the end of December, one of its claims was the theft 200GB worth of data, including e-mails and clients' credit card information.

Days after the hack, the group published 860,000 e-mail addresses and 75,000 unencrypted credit card numbers on the Web.

Now, the FBI's Milan Patel says that between December 6, 2011, and February 2012, "at least $700,000 worth of unauthorized charges were made to credit card accounts that were among those stolen during the Stratfor Hack," according … Read more