Fraud & Security

  Payment card data remains a top target for criminals, but personally identifiable information, such as birth dates and addresses, is growing in favor among them, finds the 2014 edition of the Trustwave Global Security Report. Based on an analysis of 691 data-breach investigations conducted in 2013 by Chicago-based security-services …

In an unusual tactic to thwart credit card fraud, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. nearly a year ago quietly implemented a policy in which its point-of-sale terminals prompt some cardholders to enter their card’s verification number, a code normally used for card-not-present transactions such as mail-order/telephone order (MOTO) and Internet purchases. The …

Target Corp. is making good on its plans to accelerate chip-and-PIN payment card technology in its stores and among its customers with Monday’s announcement that it will move its entire Redcard credit and debit card portfolio to cards that use MasterCard Inc.’s chip-and-PIN technology. Most of Target’s cards, however, will …

Card-not-present merchants contending with the double-digit growth of e-commerce and mobile commerce often face more exposure to fraudulent transactions. Vesta Corp., an Alpharetta, Ga.-based payments-security company, says its new payment gateway vSafe can help reduce that fraud. n The gateway relies on data from more than 1 billion transactions made …

  Independent sales organizations and acquirers have long known the value of performing their due diligence when boarding new merchants. That’s become even more important as law enforcement turns to the payments industry to find merchants that run afoul of consumers and the law. That has put more pressure on …

With Microsoft Corp. no longer supporting its Windows XP operating system, companies marketing tablet-based point-of-sale gear and software are hoping to garner more business from small and mid-sized businesses looking to replace POS systems that use the outmoded OS. As expected, computing giant Microsoft ceased support for the 12-year-old XP …

The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC, which last summer announced its effort to tokenize payment card numbers, is now mulling a related system that would similarly mask sensitive consumer information related to automated clearing house transactions, and may have a proposal ready by year’s end. “It’s something we’ve spent a …

Some 43% of businesses report they were exposed to card fraud in 2013, a whopping rise of 14 percentage points from 2012, according to the latest annual fraud survey from the Association of Financial Professionals. Nonetheless, survey respondents are remarkably optimistic about the Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) chip card standard, with 92% …

Two banks that sued Target Corp. and data-security services provider Trustwave Holdings Inc. in the wake of Target’s massive data breach have withdrawn their federal lawsuit after filing it only a week ago, leaving payments-industry observers wondering why they brought the action in the first place. In separate motions filed …

By Linda Punch Those looking for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service to give Bitcoin legitimacy as a currency when the agency issued its guidance earlier this week were sorely disappointed. The IRS said the digital cash will be taxed like property, not currency. But the quest for legitimacy may be …