David Navetta writes: The BIG 2014 security stories concerning the Target, Neiman Marcus and Michaels payment card breaches of have highlighted the significant criminal hacking and fraudulent payment card activity that goes on in the retail space. Of course, it was not so long ago that the Heartland Payment Systems breach (2008; 100 million cards exposed) and the TJX breach in (2007; 45 million card exposed)…
Category: Commentaries and Analyses
IRS Criminal Investigation issues annual report
The Internal Revenue Service today announced the release of its IRS Criminal Investigation (CI) Annual Report for fiscal year 2013, reflecting significant increases in enforcement actions against tax criminals and a robust rise in convictions, including identity theft. CI investigates potential criminal violations of the Internal Revenue Code and related financial crimes in a manner…
LifeLock addresses FTC complaint; more from CEO Todd Davis
Hayley Ringle reports: My hour-long interview last week with LifeLock CEO and chairman Todd Davis covered a lot of ground in the Phoenix Business Journal’s inaugural “Inside the Reporter’s Notebook” event. But there were some extra questions I didn’t get a chance to ask, including some about a pending FTC investigation I just learned about. Davis, who co-founded the Tempe-based identity theft protection company…
Thesis on data breach disclosure wins XS4All prize
Telecompaper reports: Dutch ISP XS4ALL and the law firm Brinkhof have awarded their annual Internet Thesis prize to a masters student researching required disclosure of data breaches. The research found that any such legal requirement would likely not meet its objectives. The thesis was based on the number of disclosures in the US before and…
Attorney General seeks national standard to protect against identity theft
Peter Cooney reports: Attorney General Eric Holder, citing the recent massive data theft at retailer Target Corp, urged Congress on Monday to enact a national standard for notifying consumers about such breaches. “This would empower the American people to protect themselves if they are at risk of identity theft,” Holder said in a statement urging…
C’mon, FTC, when will you do something? (update 2)
It has now been about two years since I filed a complaint with the FTC to alert them to all the data security breaches involving Experian’s credit report database. And while I continue to wait to see the FTC take action against Experian over their numerous breaches involving misuse of clients’ login credentials, Experian…