Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
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 …
Read More »Phishers and Scammers Follow in the Wake of the Target Breach
Target Corp. issued another update on the breach of its point-of-sale systems saying that phishers are using the incident to trick consumers into revealing sensitive information. The basic modus operandi of phishers is to send mass emails in the name of a financial institution or other company to consumers, asking them …
Read More »Target Talks With Attorneys General; Says Malware Was Involved in Data Breach
Target Corp. on Monday held a conference call with state attorneys general and said malware was involved in its data breach that compromised up to 40 million credit and debit card accounts. The new developments follow the discount-store chain’s disclosure Thursday of a breach in the point-of-sale system for its …
Read More »