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Seemingly confirming predictions from law enforcement and data-security executives in private industry that more data breaches beyond the recent ones at Target Corp. and Neiman Marcus Group are coming, arts-and-crafts retailer Michaels Stores on Saturday warned that “we may have experienced a data-security attack.” Plano, Texas-based Michaels alerted consumers to …
Read More »Target’s Data Breach Lifts 2013’s Tally of Compromised Payment Cards Way Past 2012’s Total
The number of credit and debit cards compromised in 2013’s data breaches was on track by mid-December to be more than double the number of cards compromised in 2012, but then along came Target Corp.’s massive breach that exposed 40 million more. Thus, the Identity Theft Resource Center now estimates …
Read More »Security Firm Identifies Alleged Target Malware Creator as Russian Teen
A 17-year-old Russian boy is behind the malware that has wreaked havoc at Target Corp., says IntelCrawler LLC, a Sherman Oaks, Calif.-based data-security company. In a release posted on its Web site Friday, IntelCrawler disclosed that it tracked down the alleged hacker via its own sources, including chat transcripts …
Read More »Amid EMV Travails, X9 Convenes a Meeting to Investigate Standards for Debit Routing
Against a backdrop of knotty problems besetting the U.S. introduction of EMV, a financial-services standards body is investigating the potential for a set of non-proprietary chip card rules for EMV debit routing. n The group also broke up into subgroups during the meeting, which was held Dec. 9-10 at the …
Read More »Experts Differ on Whether EMV Chip Cards Provide Data-Breach Immunity
The huge data breach at Target Corp. and now one at upscale department store Neiman Marcus Group and possibly other retailers has introduced many Americans to the term “EMV” and the possibility that more secure Europay-MasterCard-Visa chip cards will replace vulnerable magnetic-stripe credit and debit cards in the United States. …
Read More »Target’s Breach Compromised Data on Millions More Consumers Than Initially Disclosed
Target Corp. on Friday said personal data on 70 million customers were compromised in a separate theft during the same data breach it disclosed last month that exposed up to 40 million credit and debit card accounts of U.S. shoppers. That could bring the total number of customers affected up …
Read More »With Marijuana Sales Now Legal in Colorado, Will the Smoke Clear on Pot Payments?
The smoke seemed to clear a bit this week on the status of electronic payments for Colorado shops selling now-legal recreational marijuana, but the nascent merchant category still remains in what effectively is a legal no man’s land between conflicting state and federal laws. Some 20 states and the District …
Read More »Authentication Layer Helps E-Commerce Conversion Rates in Some Countries, Not in Others
The online payment card authentication technology known as Three Domain, or 3-D, Secure, and marketed as MasterCard SecureCode and Verified by Visa, have mixed impacts on e-commerce conversion rates around the world, according to a joint study commissioned by international payment gateway Adyen and consulting firm Edgar, Dunn & Co. …
Read More »Target Confirms Encrypted PINs Stolen As Part of Breach, Says Debit Accounts Remain ‘Safe’
Target Corp. on Friday confirmed that data thieves obtained customers’ encrypted debit card PINs, but said the sensitive numbers remain useless to the criminals because of the technology masking them. ”While we previously shared that encrypted data was obtained, this morning through additional forensics work we were able to confirm …
Read More »Target Denies Reports That Data Thieves’ Haul Included PINs
Target Corp. is denying a widely circulated report that the information stolen by cyber criminals in a massive breach of credit and debit card data included customer’s debit card PINs Citing a “senior payments executive familiar with the situation,” Reuters reported early Christmas Day that the data thieves have the …
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