Technology

Target Breach Spells End for Magnetic Stripe Cards in 2015

After years spent fighting pushes for more secure standards, the payment card industry and retailers are moving quickly to abandon magnetic stripe cards and embrace so-called ‘chip and pin’ technology. Credit card firms MasterCard and Visa plan to have most customers on the more secure chip and pin cards by October, 2015, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. The move comes in the wake of a massive heist of account information for tens of millions of credit card holders from the systems of U.S. retailers including Target, Neiman Marcus and Michaels Stores. In an interview with MasterCard’s Carolyn Balfany, the Journal notes that company has set October, 2015 as the date for a “liability shift” – a change in policy that will hold the party in a fraudulent transaction liable for losses due to that transaction. The goal, said Balfany, is to try to encourage merchants and […]

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Google Patent: Video Mob Sourcing Spots Public Gatherings

Google is adding to its arsenal of creepy, Big Data tools with crowd sourcing technology that can identify public gatherings and other events that draw spectators. The company has applied to the US government for a patent on what is described as a method for “inferring events based on mob source video,” according to the Web site Public Intelligence. The technology uses video clips submitted by Google users (to YouTube, etc.) to infer that “an event of interest has likely occurred.” The technology surveys time- and geolocation stamps on the videos to correlate the activities of individuals who might be part of a gathering. The Patent, US2014/0025755 A1, was published on January 23, 2014 and lists Google Inc. as the Assignee and Ronald Paul Hughes as the inventor. It claims the technology, dubbed “mob sourcing” will allow Google to correlate video and images to infer the existence of groups (i.e. a public […]

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Can Google Hold Back Facial Recognition For Glass?

The New Yorker blog has an interesting, short piece by Betsy Morais on the challenges posed by facial recognition and wearable technology that’s worth reading. The post, “Through a Face Scanner, Darkly” picks up on recent reports about a proliferation of facial recognition applications for the Google Glass platform, addressing the ethical implications of the intersection of wearable technology with powerful sensors and analytics capabilities, including facial recognition. Specifically, Morais zeros in on an app called NameTag that adds a face scanner to the Glass. “Snap a photo of a passerby, then wait a minute as the image is sent up to the company’s database and a match is hunted down. The results load in front of your left eye, a selection of personal details that might include someone’s name, occupation, Facebook and/or Twitter profile, and, conveniently, whether there’s a corresponding entry in the national sex-offender registry,” Morais writes. NameTag’s focus […]

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Podcast: Security Challenges Ahead For Blackberry

With another busy week behind us in the security world, we sat down with Zach Lanier, a senior security researcher for mobile authentication specialist Duo Security. Zach is a recognized authority on the security of mobile devices, and was able to talk about some ongoing research he’s doing on Blackberry’s BB10 operating system. Zach told us that Blackberry 10, the latest version of Blackberry’s mobile operating system, is a big improvement over previous versions, including the TabletOS that Blackberry (formerly Research in Motion) used for its PlayBook – the company’s first foray into the tablet space.  But Lanier and fixed many of the information leaks that he and others found in TabletOS and reported to the company. “But there are still lots of questions we’re looking to answer,” Lanier said.   Among other things, Lanier is examining whether Blackberry 10’s support for so many different runtimes might pose security problems for […]

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After Snowden, State Department Eyes Cloud-Nationalism

Amid the very public debate about the civil liberties implications of Edward Snowden’s revelations about NSA spying at home and abroad, the potential business fallout from the leak of classified information has been a footnote. But as the disclosures wear on, business leaders in the U.S. and elsewhere are beginning to discern the impact of the Snowden leaks. One place they’re voicing their concerns is The State Department, where technology vendors have been complaining of blowback from international customers, according to a senior State Department official who spoke with The Security Ledger. “We’re talking to cloud providers, including some very large cloud providers, about the challenges they face abroad,” the official said. The State Department has heard anecdotal reports of US firms losing business due to concerns about government surveillance, but companies have been reluctant to advertise lost accounts. At the same time, the State Department has heard of foreign competitors drumming […]

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