Mt. Gox, a well-known Bitcoin exchange, has shut down, leaving investors who had Bitcoins at the digital-currency exchange wondering what’s next. Bitcoin is a decentralized digital-payment system based on mathematically derived new Bitcoins coming into circulation by so-called “miners” using computers. News service Reuters reports today that the exchange …
Read More »Neiman Marcus Downsizes by Two-Thirds Its Tally of Cards Compromised in Breach
In a rare piece of good, or least not as bad, news about the recent retailer payment card data breaches, upscale department-store chain Neiman Marcus Group says about 350,000 cards were compromised by the breach it disclosed in January, down from its earlier estimate of 1.1 million. The number of …
Read More »Durbin Wants To Know How Well His Debit Card Fraud-Prevention Adjustment Is Working
In the wake of recent data breaches at Target Corp. and other retailers, U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin, author of a famous amendment that regulates debit card interchange, and an ally want to know how well a provision in the amendment that gives a debit card issuer an extra penny in …
Read More »Chip Standards Body Fast-Tracks New Token Standard in Wake of Target, Other Recent Breaches
EMVCo., the international standards body for chip cards based on the EMV specification, is fast-tracking a specification for card-number tokenization in the wake of recently disclosed data breaches at major retailers, including the theft of card and other information on 110 million customers of Target Corp. The chip card organization …
Read More »Small-Merchant PCI Compliance Is on the Rise, Acquirer Survey Shows
Close to 60% of ISOs and other processors are reporting compliance rates of 40% or better among their portfolios of so-called Level 4 merchants, up about five percentage points from a year ago, according to a survey released by Atlanta-based security-solutions vendor ControlScan Inc. and the Merchant Acquirers’ Committee, a …
Read More »Target Passed a PCI Inspection Before Breach; Will Spend $100 Million on Chip Card Effort
Target Corp. said on Tuesday that it passed its latest Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI) inspection a mere three months before confirming in December that a data breach compromised 40 million customers’ payment card numbers. Target also said it is fast-tracking its efforts to roll out chip card acceptance …
Read More »Capitol Hill Hearings Will Shine the Spotlight on Payment-Card Security Lapses
Merchants and financial institutions will find their information-protection practices under intense scrutiny this week in Washington, where no fewer than four Senate and House of Representatives hearings are scheduled in the wake of payment card data breaches at Target Corp., Neiman Marcus Group and other merchants. The sessions kick off …
Read More »Visa Sticks to EMV Deadline; CEO Decries Data-Breach Blame Game and ‘Misinformation’
Visa Inc. chief executive Charles Scharf on Thursday quelled rumors that the payment network might change its October 2015 liability-shift deadline for Europay-MasterCard-Visa chip card transactions. Scharf also decried what he called “misinformation” and “confusion” about card security following December’s news of Target Corp.’s huge payment card data breach and …
Read More »Big-Time Data Breaches Lift Big-Data Fraud Fighter Feedzai As It Launches U.S. Operation
In the wake of the recently discovered data breaches at major merchants like Target Corp., Neiman Marcus Group, and Michaels Stores, much of the talk in the payments industry has focused on whether more advanced card technology, like chip cards, might have mitigated the risk of fraud. But one ambitious …
Read More »ISOs and Acquirers Advised Against Waiting To Make Their EMV Migration Moves
With 20 months to go until a major liability shift associated with the migration of the U.S. payment system to chip card, independent sales organizations and acquirers should not wait to get themselves and their merchants ready for the October 2015 deadline, advised Leland S. Englebardt, group head of …
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