Data breaches are running at record levels, according to the San Diego-based Identity Theft Resource Center, a non-profit that tracks cybercrime. ITRC says it recorded 342 data breaches from Jan. 1 through June 24, up 69% from the same period in 2007. But, like the origins and perpetrators of so …

News of the first big data breach of 2008 broke Monday afternoon when Scarborough, Maine-based grocery chain Hannaford Bros. Co. acknowledged a data intrusion into its computer network that resulted in the theft of a reported 4.2 million customer credit and debit card numbers. The disclosure came only after the …

Losses to identity fraud will be hard to reduce unless banks and other financial-services providers begin working harder to recruit consumers to look after their own accounts, a noted researcher said on Wednesday. “The important change that needs to happen today is a much stronger partnership between the person who …

Electronic-payment security experts predicted fraudsters would turn their attention to less-guarded telephone-based banking systems as a result of banks' efforts to beef up online-banking security in the wake of federal regulations promulgated in 2005. Now comes a new study about identity fraud, which, while not showing a causal relationship, gives …

Few people would deny that a law Congress enacted in 2003 mandating payment card receipt truncation had a noble aim?to prevent criminals from getting enough data when they obtained other people's transaction receipts to steal identities or commit card fraud. But some merchants, while complying with the truncation provision that …

The electronic payments venture formerly known as GratisCard Inc. added more muscle this week with a free person-to-person payments service, a credit card, new bank partners, and a new name to boot. Now called Revolution Money, the payments system founded by an investment firm created by America Online Inc. co-founder …

Off-price retailer TJX Cos. Inc. late Friday announced it had settled the consumer class-action lawsuits it faced in the wake of a security breach that compromised nearly 46 million payment card records in its computers, but big-picture issues facing card networks, processors, and merchants about the best ways to enhance …

Data Insecurity (Editor's Note: This is the first of a 10-part series by noted electronic-payments-industry analyst Steve Mott on the current crisis in transaction security?its causes, its costs, and its possible solutions?ranging from the point of sale to the Internet to mobile commerce. After eight weekly articles, the series moves …

Hackers frequently go free, but Coventry, R.I., police late Monday night arrested four California men suspected in the recent theft of debit and credit card data from PIN pads at grocery-store chain Stop & Shop Supermarket Cos. While the arrests are certainly good news to Stop & Shop and banks, …

Data breaches, including the recently disclosed hack at off-price retailer TJX Cos. Inc. (Digital Transactions News, Jan. 22), garner a lot of headlines, but they paint a misleading picture about the resulting dangers, according to some experts. While an estimated 30% of consumers have been exposed to data breaches, only …