Kim Zetter reports: Wal-Mart was the victim of a serious security breach in 2005 and 2006 in which hackers targeted the development team in charge of the chain’s point-of-sale system and siphoned source code and other sensitive data to a computer in Eastern Europe, Wired.com has learned. Internal documents reveal for the first time that…
Category: Commentaries and Analyses
Number of identity-fraud victims in Ireland hits 90,000
John Kennedy reports: More than 3,000 new cases of identity fraud have been identified since this time last year, bringing the total number of victims in Ireland to 90,000. New research brought out in conjunction with National Fraud Week, 12-18 October, reveals 51pc of Irish people are still not sure how fraudsters get access to…
Cyberthieves find workplace networks are easy pickings
Byron Acohido provides a write-up of some of the TJX and Heartland Payment Systems incidents that emphasizes the point that many hacks go undetected or unnoticed — and that cyberthieves often take considerable time to start and continue stealing data: Companies, understandably, rarely discuss data breaches. However, proof that data thieves are targeting hundreds of…
Heartland Breach: Inside Look at the Plaintiffs’ Case
Two stories today take a look at the the master complaint (pdf) filed last month in U.S. Southern District Court in Houston. Linda McClasson of BankInfoSecurity.com provides a timeline and re-hash of the breach that incorporates allegations from the lawsuit, including statements made by Heartland before and after the breach and the statement made by…
Highmark changes it procedures in wake of BCBS breach
Another lesson learned the hard way? In the aftermath of the theft of a Blue Cross Blue Shield laptop, Highmark, Inc. notified 50,000 doctors that their Social Security numbers or tax ID numbers were on the stolen laptop containing their unencrypted data. A BCBS employee had reportedly breached policy by downloading the unencrypted database to…
Hannaford breach case not over yet
Trevor Maxwell reports: Just as a potential class-action lawsuit against Hannaford Bros. appeared dead, there’s a glimmer of hope this week for consumers who hope to recover damages from the Scarborough-based grocer for a massive electronic data theft in late 2007 and early 2008. The federal judge overseeing the case plans to ask Maine’s highest…