At least two local financial institutions are actively working to protect customers in the wake of a security breach at a New Jersey-based company that processes payments nationwide.

Surrey Bank & Trust, which is headquartered in Mount Airy and also has offices in Pilot Mountain and Stuart, Va., has sent letters to its customers notifying them of the major security breach at Heartland Payment Systems in Princeton, N.J.

“So far, none of our customers have had any problems,” said a spokeswoman for the local institution. “Surrey Bank has not been compromised.”

The State Employees Credit Union — which has branches in Mount Airy, Dobson and Elkin — also has issued new credit card and personal-identification numbers (PINs) for member cards that possibly were breached at Heartland Payment Systems.

Heartland is a large payment processor for more than 250,000 businesses — mostly small restaurants and retail stores — across the country. It handles more than 4 billion transactions annually. The company announced in late January that its security system had been breached by intruders who installed malicious software that enabled them to retrieve credit card, debit card and other data crossing its network.

The total number of cards affected has not been disclosed by Heartland, but it was described as “very large” in an alert issued by the State Employees Credit Union. The breach could involve information on many millions of accounts in the United States, according to the alert.

“It is a nationwide thing,” the spokeswoman for Surrey Bank and Trust emphasized Tuesday, pointing out that because of the widespread scope of the security breach, it could affect transactions made virtually anywhere. “It could be anybody,” added the spokeswoman, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “It could be any retail business.”

Although the odds of a local resident actually being affected due to the millions of card numbers potentially involved are small, the Surrey Bank representative said the institution has taken a proactive approach to the situation just to be safe.

New cards are being prepared for the bank’s customers as a precaution. It takes about two weeks to receive a new one, and customers can use their old cards until then.

A similar approach has been taken by the State Employees Credit Union (SECU), which said that more than 60,000 of its members were affected by the Heartland security problem. Letters were mailed to SECU members impacted by the reissue of cards and/or PINs. Members have been advised to activate their new cards immediately after receipt and destroy old ones.

“The breach at (Heartland) has probably affected every financial institution in the United States,” said Leanne Phelps, senior vice president of the Card and Record Services division of the credit union.

“While not all institutions will reissue cards and PINs, SECU feels it can best protect its members with this action,” Phelps said.

Other credit card issuers including Bank of America also are said to be in the process of sending new credit and debit cards to consumers, according to national media reports.

For its part, Heartland Payment Systems is advising consumers to check their monthly statements for unauthorized charges.

Contact Tom Joyce at tjoyce@mtairynews.com or at 719-1924.