Really really helpful post over on 451 Security. Here’s the intro: I’ve written this post for two reasons. First, the recent Target breach has led to some confusion, which I will try to clear up here. Second, I wanted to create an easily referenced educational resource on how credit cards are designed to work. I’m…
Category: Of Note
Shark Tanks and Cybersecurity
Derek Bambauer writes: It’s the most wonderful time of the year… for data breaches.Target may have compromised as many as 40 million credit and debit cards used by shoppers in their stores. What liability will they face? At George Mason’s excellent workshop on cybersecurity, there was a spirited debate over the mechanisms of enforcing security standards. (This…
Sources: Target Investigating Data Breach (update 1)
Brian Krebs has the scoop on what sounds like another major data breach – again: Nationwide retail giant Target is investigating a data breach potentially involving millions of customer credit and debit card records, multiple reliable sources tell KrebsOnSecurity. The sources said the breach appears to have begun on or around Black Friday 2013 —…
IG: Personal Information Stolen from 104,179 after Energy Department Cyber Attack
Elizabeth Harrington reports on a newly-released Inspector General’s report on the hack at the Department of Energy previously covered on this blog. Some of the highlights: The Energy department was aware of “early warning signs” that personally identifiable information (PII) of its employees was at risk. The attackers used exploits commonly available on the internet…
Minnesota National Guard member accused of stealing Ft. Bragg soldiers’ identity info
CBS News/AP reports: A Minnesota National Guardsman faces federal fraud charges in the alleged theft of names, Social Security numbers and security clearance levels of roughly 400 members of his former Army unit in Fort Bragg, N.C. The Iraq War veteran intended to use the confidential material to create fake IDs for his militia, court…
Swedes uncover Disqus user security breach
David Landes reports: A group of Swedish journalists are sitting on a goldmine of 29 million online comments, with information about users’ identities, from news sites around the world thanks to a security flaw in debate moderation service Disqus. After outing several ‘online haters’ at home, which caused several resignations from the populist, far-right Sweden Democrat…