Target provided some guidance on its fourth quarter earnings on Friday and, not incidentally, dropped another bombshell in the long-running story about the November data breach that exposed credit card information on some 40 million customers. It turns out that the credit card numbers were just the tip of a much larger iceberg. The box store retailer now claims that its investigation of that incident revealed that data on around 70 million customers was exposed, including e-mail addresses, phone numbers, mailing addresses and more. In a statement, Target said that much of the stolen data was “partial in nature,” but that it will reach out to customers whose e-mail addresses were stolen to warn them about potential fraud, including “phishing” e-mails that purport to come from Target. “I know that it is frustrating for our guests to learn that this information was taken and we are truly sorry they are […]
Retail
CES: The Security Questions Nobody Wants You To Ask
A note that CES – the Consumer Electronics Show – is once again upon us. Prepare yourself for three or four days of tipsy reporting from the mainstream media about all the gee whiz gadgets that will soon be yours…or not. Let’s face it: a lot of what’s shown at CES is proof of concept stuff and some of it is just too downright silly to ever catch on. Remember HAPIFork? The “smart” fork that would warn you when you were shoveling grub into your maw too quickly? Right. Product security and data privacy are almost always lost in the excitement over the new gadgets and the TUSs. (Televisions of Unusual Size? I don’t think they exist!) That’s why, over on the Veracode blog, I put together a quick list of impertinent questions that every security-minded CES attendee should have at their fingertips. The questions cover a wide range of […]
US CERT Warns About Point-of-Sale Malware
With news of the breach of big-box retailer Target Inc. still in the headlines, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) issued a warning about the danger posed by malicious software targeting Point of Sale (POS) systems. CERT issued an advisory (TA14-002A) on Thursday asking POS owners to take steps to secure the devices, and telling consumers to beware. The warning comes after a string of reports that suggest that malware attacking point of sale systems is on the rise. In December, researchers from Arbor Networks said they had detected an “active PoS compromise campaign” to steal credit and debit card data that used the Dexter and Project Hook malware. Dexter is a Windows-based program that was first discovered in December, 2012 by Seculert, an Israeli security firm. It is still not known whether malware played a part in the huge theft of credit card data from Target Inc. That […]
A Christmas Hangover From Smart Devices
Editor’s note: This is reposted from Veracode’s blog. Just in time for the holidays, I received an e-mail by way of Electric Imp. If you’re not familiar with the “Imp,” (my phrase, not theirs), it’s a PaaS that makes it easy to build and connect smart devices. Among the cool gift ideas Electric Imp was promoting: a whole line of products produced by the company Quirky along with GE under the “Wink: Instantly Connected” products banner and available at Best Buy and other stores. There’s Egg Minder, an Internet-connected egg tray that tracks how many eggs you have left in your fridge, and how fresh each of them is. Not your thing? How about Nimbus? It’s a “customizable Internet-connected dashboard that lets you “track the data that affects your life, from commute times and weather to social media and more.” Nimbus looks like someone ripped the gauges out of a […]
Report: Cards Stolen From Target Used – at Target
The web site that first broke the news that data on millions of credit cards was lifted from box retailer Target now reports that those cards are being used to make fraudulent purchases at brick and mortar stores- including at Target itself. Writing on the website Krebsonsecurity.com, Brian Krebs said that so-called “dumps” of stolen card data are flooding underground “carder” web sites where cyber criminals fence stolen card information. Citing an unnamed source at a New England bank, Krebs said that the bank had, with his help, purchased about 20 cards for its customers that were offered for sale on rescator(dot)la, the carder web site, and confirmed that all the stolen cards had been used at Target. Furthermore, the source confirmed to Krebs that some of the stolen cards had already been used to make fraudulent purchases – including at Target and other big box retailers. Only one […]
