Over a Million Credit Cards Compromised - Morning Business Report

You probably had a bigger chance of facing credit card security headaches than winning the Mega Millions lottery. While there were just three jackpot winners, as many 1.5 million credit card numbers may have been compromised by hackers. The latest breach comes at the Atlanta processing firm Global Payments. The stolen information could be used to create counterfeit credit cards. Visa has pulled Global Payments from a list of hundreds of firms considered to be "compliant service providers," according to the Wall Street Journal. If you tried to pay with Visa yesterday you may have been shut out for a while. Visa says a 45-minute outage was caused by a technical problem that's apparently unrelated to the Global Payments breach.

Did the mild winter play a role in juicing up the employment numbers during January and February? If so, the March figures to be released on Friday by the Labor Department could be disappointing. Most economists are forecasting about 200,000 jobs were created last month. The US jobless rate may remain at 8.3 percent. As the election season approaches each monthly report may become more important than the last.

The stock market starts trading this morning for the second quarter, but Q1 will be hard to beat. The big stock Standard and Poor's 500 index jumped 12 percent during the first three months of this year.

Go easy on Ben Bernanke! That's the plea from his predecessor Alan Greenspan. The former Fed Chairman tells the Financial Times: "'Anyone has the right to criticize Federal Reserve policy, but it is wholly inappropriate and destructive to engage in ad hominem attacks."  Greenspan blasted Republican attacks on Bernanke, calling them "inappropriate and destructive."

Many seniors are still struggling to pay off student debt. The Washington Post reports new research from the New York Federal Reserve. It shows Americans 60 and older still owe about $36 billion in student loans. Some of this debt has been held for decades but others took out loans when they went back to college later in life.

Richard Davies Business Correspondent ABC NEWS Radio twitter.com/daviesabc