Brian Krebs writes: When you’re shopping for stolen credit and debit cards online, there are so many choices these days. A glut of stolen data — combined with cutthroat competition and innovation among vendors — is conspiring to keep prices for stolen account numbers exceedingly low. Even so, many readers probably have no idea that…
Category: Commentaries and Analyses
Preventing Data Breaches: Lessons From Higher Education
Alex Rothacker writes: Since 2008, higher education institutions have experienced a staggering 158 data breaches resulting in over 2.3 million reported records compromised. In 2009 alone there were 57 reported data breaches, and year to date through July of 2010, there have already been 32 breaches. Considering that most breaches are not reported until well…
VA beefs up data security of network devices
Mary Mosquera reports: By the end of September, information security managers at the Department of Veterans Affairs will have the electronic tools in place that will let them see how vulnerable the one million computers and other devices connected to the VA network are.For the last six months, VA has been deploying multiple software applications…
61% of data losses are malicious – Imperva
Research just released claims that malicious intent is behind 62% of data losses, with insider breaches accounting for 33% and hackers accounting for 29% of noted incidents. The study of more than 1100 US and international IT security professionals also found that the remaining data losses were accidental in nature. According to Imperva, the IT…
Data breaches remain high
Jeff Blumenthal reviews some stats on breach reports with a local eye to Pennsylvania and New Jersey in this news story. A snippet: Sasha Romanosky, a doctoral student at Carnegie Mellon University whose research revolves around data breaches, said Pennsylvania and New Jersey are slightly above the national average for rate of reported identity theft,…
Social Engineering Report Shows Corporate America At Risk
Kelly Jackson Higgins writes: Among the unsettling results in the final report, released today, from the Social Engineering Capture The Flag contest held in August at Defcon: Security companies were just as susceptible to social engineering as nontechnology firms, Internet Explorer 6 was still in use at 65 percent of the Fortune 500 companies targeted…