Payment firms that are used to choosing which PIN standard to audit against now have a much simpler choice. The Accredited Standards Committee X9 Inc. and the PCI Security Standards Council have created a unified PIN Security Standard, replacing separate ones each organization previously maintained. The consolidation, announced Tuesday, should …

Data-security provider Very Good Security (VGS) announced an investment by Visa Inc. The amount of the investment was not disclosed.In related news, Visa announced it has met its goal to use 100% renewable electricity by 2020 across its worldwide operations. Visa set the goal in 2018.Google said it acquired Pointy, a company that helps local retailers …

So-called sophisticated attacks monitored by Mastercard Inc. subsidiary NuData Security jumped 430% in late 2019, with fraudsters deploying more human-aided online attacks rather than fully automated ones in order to fool the defenders. Those findings come from NuData’s “2019: Fraud Risk at a Glance” report released Thursday. NuData is a …

East Coast convenience-store and gas-station chain Wawa Inc. reported Thursday that it discovered malware on its payment-processing servers that may have affected all of its 850-plus locations. And at least two more municipalities using the Click2Gov online-payment platform recently have reported possible data compromises. Wawa, Pa.-based Wawa said it discovered …

A new standard unveiled Wednesday by the PCI Security Standards Council could pave the way for more acceptance of contactless payments with no more hardware needed than a merchant’s off-the-shelf mobile phone or tablet. The standard is dubbed Contactless Payments on COTS (commercial off-the shelf devices), or CPoC. It spells …

More and more people are identifying themselves online through their unique biometric data. The method is robust in so far as the original biological data is in analog format, which means one decides how many digital bits to use to represent that data. The bit-flow of the reading may be …

Customer data from 4 million payment cards stolen in breaches at four restaurant chains has gone up for sale in the Joker’s Stash underground bazaar, KrebsOnSecurity reported. The breaches occurred at nearly half the 1,750 total locations of Krystal, Moe’s Southwest Grill, McAlister’s Deli and Schlotzsky’s, the latter three of which are owned by …

Payments companies that handle consumer data in Europe are becoming quite familiar with the General Data Protection Regulation and the Secure Customer Authentication rules. Think you’re immune because you’re a U.S. company? Think again. If you’re one of the 500-million-plus consumers in the European Union, you might be proud that …

There are hundreds of cybersecurity companies offering products designed to protect us from identity theft by requiring us to prove our identity through biometrics and unscripted behavior. These products claim efficacy against today’s threats. Many of them even grow and prosper as they defeat a great deal of contemporary fraud. …

Quick-service restaurant chain The Krystal Co., which has 342 locations in 10 Southeastern states, said it is in the early stages of “actively investigating a security incident” that may have compromised credit and debit card numbers used in payments at some of its stores from July through September.A. Wayne Johnson, …