Target

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Target agrees to pay $39m to Banks for Data Breach | Reuters

In-brief: Reuters reports today that Target Corp has agreed to pay $39.4 million to banks to resolve claims that said they lost money because of the retailer’s late 2013 data breach.

Infographic: After A Year of Breaches, Are Retailers More Secure?

After a year in which some of the U.S.’s top retailers found themselves on the wrong side of sophisticated, cyber criminal hacking groups, you may be tempted to search for a silver lining. Maybe the up side of all the attacks on retail networks and point of sale systems is an improved security posture overall? After all: if your neighbors to the left and right have their house broken into, you may well beef up your locks and alarms, even if your house hasn’t been targeted. Or, at least, that’s how the thinking goes. But Boston-based BitSight took a look at how the retail sector is faring security-wise as 2014 draws to a close. BitSight is an interesting company. They market a kind of reputation monitoring service: assessing security posture for companies by observing how they look from the outside. Think of it as a kind of Experian or TransUnion for security. […]

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Third Party Vendor Source of Breach at Home Depot

Add Home Depot to the list of companies who have been victimized as a result of a third party contractor or supplier. The home improvement giant said in a statement on Thursday that the criminals that attacked the company’s network first gained access to the “perimeter” of Home Depot’s network. Target, the box store retailer, sketched out a similar scenario to describe the breach that resulted in the theft of 70 million credit cards numbers from its customers. In that case, a company that serviced HVAC systems in Target’s headquarters was reported as the source of the breach. Home Depot said that attackers were able to move within its network by elevating their level of network access and install what Home Depot described as “unique, custom-built malware” on self-checkout systems in the U.S. and Canada. The revelations about the circumstances of the breach came on a day when Home Depot […]

Wanna-Breach: Counterfeit Data Breaches Are A Thing

Headline grabbing data breaches are such a fixture of our modern business environment that they’ve even spawned a knock-off market: phony data breaches designed to harm a company’s image by making it look as if the firm has lost control of critical data. That’s the conclusion of a research note from Deloitte, which warns that malicious actors are increasingly using false claims about massive data breaches to bedevil established firms – inflicting real economic and reputation damage.

Obama Uses Executive Order To Push Chip and Pin

Add data security to the long list of issues on which U.S. President Barack Obama has resorted to unilateral action in order to push the government forward on a crucial matter. On Friday, President Obama signed an Executive Order directing the government to require the use of so-called “chip and PIN” technology for any newly issued or existing government debit and credit cards. The Order was intended to make the federal government “lead by example in securing transactions and sensitive data,” the White House said in a statement. The new BuySecure Initiative will provide consumers with more tools to secure their financial future by assisting victims of identity theft, improving the Government’s payment security as a customer and a provider, and accelerating the transition to stronger security technologies and the development of next-generation payment security tools. The Order launches a new initiative dubbed “BuySecure” intended to “drive the market towards more secure payment systems” […]