Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Some cybercrooks are nothing if not accommodating. A new version of the so-called ransomware called CyberWall, for example, has made it easier for victims to make payments and get their data back. CyberWall 3.0, released early this week, includes new gateways for reaching the decryption site. The ransom note file …
Read More »Obama Proposes National Breach Notification And Privacy Laws in Wake of Data Thefts
In the wake of a barrage of data thefts affecting tens of millions of U.S. citizens, President Barack Obama on Monday proposed national legislation to regulate breach notification. Other legislation proposed by Obama would ban companies from selling student data to other organizations for non-educational uses and from using information …
Read More »Can EMVCo’s Aegis Rescue a Floundering 3D Secure for Online Payments Security?
Card-not-present fraud is the bane of any merchant that operates an e-commerce site, and EMVCo, a standards body for the Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) specification, hopes its newly assumed oversight of the 3D Secure authentication standard can help them. Operated as Visa Inc.’s Verified by Visa and MasterCard Inc.’s SecureCode, 3D Secure …
Read More »With EMV’s Liability Shift, Acquirers Face Consumer-Fraud Risk for the First Time
With a crucial deadline just 266 days away, the payments industry is starting to look at just what kind of fraud liability—and how much fraud—merchant acquirers will have to assume if their merchants aren’t ready to accept Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) chip cards by October. There’s about $6 billion annually in lost, …
Read More »Bitcoin Exchange Bitstamp Shuts Down While It Sorts out Effects of a $5.2 Million Breach
A breach Jan. 4 at Bitcoin exchange Bitstamp resulted in the loss of approximately $5.2 million worth of the digital currency and caused the exchange to shut down while it sorts out the after-effects. That’s according to notes posted to Bitstamp’s Web site Monday and Tuesday. The breach targeted one …
Read More »Rash of Chain Breaches Casts Spotlight on Unique Vulnerabilities of Franchised Businesses
News of a possible card-data breach at chicken-sandwich chain Chick-fil-A caps a year that saw a number of franchised businesses compromised and throws into relief what some experts say is the unique security vulnerability of the franchise business model. Franchised chains, in which so-called owner-operators run stores under a license …
Read More »Wire-Transfer Provider Xoom Hit by $31 Million International Fraud Scam
Online wire-transfer provider Xoom Inc. reported Monday that it will take a $30.8 million one-time charge as a result of a scam in which the same amount of its cash was transferred abroad. Xoom also said that its chief financial officer had resigned. San Francisco-based Xoom declared in a regulatory …
Read More »The Tally of Payment Cards Compromised in Data Breaches Grew 38% in 2014
The number of credit and debit cards compromised in data breaches hit 64.4 million in 2014, up 38% from 46.6 million in 2013, according to preliminary figures from the Identity Theft Resource Center, a San Diego-based non-profit that tracks breaches. Some 133 of 2014’s breaches involved payment cards, up 39% …
Read More »Retail Groups Blast ‘Inaccuracies’ And ‘Misrepresentations’ in ICBA Release
Retailer organizations are lambasting an Independent Community Bankers of America survey that blamed retailers for breach costs that totaled $90 million at The Home Depot Inc. this year. In a letter to the ICBA and bearing Monday’s date, the chief executives of the Retail Industry Leaders Association, National Retail Federation, …
Read More »2015’s Coming Attractions: Breach Law, More Choke Point, And Online Sales Tax
Breach-notification laws, misbehaving merchants, and online sales tax legislation are just three potential hotspots for legislation and regulation in 2015, advise payments industry attorneys. Long a wish-list item for many, a uniform, national breach-notification law could see enactment in 2015, thanks —unfortunately—to the flurry of large-and small-scale payment card data …
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