Those who work in electronic payments know the risks from criminals constantly trying to steal sensitive payment data. Small-business owners, however, may not. Eighty-nine percent of them say there is low to no risk of their businesses facing a data compromise. That startling stat comes from the recently released 2019 …

A bank’s ability to deliver convenience and security is a high-stakes balancing act. Consumers value secure applications, but they don’t want the hassle that often accompanies multiple points of authentication. They want easy-to-use applications that facilitate fast and seamless financial transactions.  There has been no shortage of data breaches over …

New software standards aim to resolve—or at least minimize—credit card theft. There’s cause for both optimism and caution. Probably you’ve seen the headline, or a version of it, multiple times: “Another day, another data breach.” As in, cyber insecurity is rampant. It is especially rampant when it comes to the …

Minting money has become a mouse click in the Federal Reserve’s computer. Ninety percent of circulated funds is never materialized in either coins or bank notes. And the recent craze for cryptocurrencies further cements the de-materialization of money. The advantages of digital currency are clear and numerous: it stores on …

Hamburger chain The Wendy’s Co. announced a $50 million settlement of class-action lawsuits filed against it after a data breach that began in 2015. The 7,500 bank and credit-union plaintiffs alleged the breach was caused by malware that affected point-of-sale systems at more than 1,000 franchised Wendy’s locations. Some 18 …

Merchant-processing revenues from North America grew 7% year-over-year in 2018’s fourth quarter to $1.1 billion on a comparable accounting basis, First Data Corp. reported Wednesday. First Data, which has an agreement to be acquired by processor Fiserv Inc. in a $22 billion all-stock deal, reported total quarterly revenues of $1.42 …

The number of known data breaches fell 24% in 2018, but the number of compromised records that contained sensitive personally identifiable information more than doubled from 2017’s levels to over 450 million, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center’s latest annual data-breach review. The San Diego-based non-profit and partner CyberScout …

The PCI Security Standards Council on Wednesday published its new software security standards and said the existing standard will be retired in 2022. The new set of requirements actually has two major components—The PCI Secure Software Standard and the PCI Secure Lifecycle Standard—and is under the umbrella of what the …

Last month, the world learned that hackers had been violating Marriott’s customer database for four long years without being detected. How many similar outfits are being violated as we speak? People in my profession know that if a breach is detected and there is a chance to hide it from …

Click2Gov, a software application popular among municipalities for processing online payments of utility bills and fees, has been compromised in 46 U.S. cities and one Canadian location, according to an analysis released this week by Gemini Advisory. The New York City-based data-security firm estimates 294,929 payment card records have been …