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Browsers to Blame?
Bill Morrow, CEO and executive chairman of Quarri Technologies, told us that the continued adoption of Web applications for secure  electronic transactions introduces a weak link in the chain of security.
"Banks, government agencies, healthcare institutions and other organizations are increasingly using browsers as the primary platform for the delivery of information, making browsers the primary point of theft or data leakage," he said. "Standard Web browsers contain critical security gaps that create significant risks to organizations' confidential data."
Morrow argued any credit card processing conducted in the Web browser leaves data at risk, as it's unencrypted on the endpoint, and many organizations aren't up-to-date with antivirus software , leaving them vulnerable to malware and man-in-the-middle threats. That same data can also remain in the Web browser cache in clear text format and be vulnerable to extraction by malware.
"Even simple, everyday tasks such as cut, copy, paste and screen capture put sensitive data in the systemwide clipboard, which is also rendered in clear text format and easily accessible, even after the Web session has ended," Morrow said, noting that stored user names and passwords from browser sessions remain available in the authentication cache and vulnerable to malware.
"The good news is there are technologies that address these challenges," Morrow said. "Providing and enforcing usage of a secure, hardened browser session for your employees and customers is the best way to protect your data."
Jay:
Posted: 2012-04-05 @ 4:41pm PT
In the wake of Global Payments' data breach, there has been a lot of advice on what people should do to protect themselves, but way too often we are asked to do more than what's needed and that can needlessly lead to different issues. However, while the damage done by the hackers is real, they cannot harm us without first tricking us into revealing the information they don't yet have (name, address, SSN). So as long as we are cautious and don't give our personal information to strangers, we will do just fine. For more: http://blog.unibulmerchantservices.com/how-to-respond-to-the-global-payments-data-breach.
Jay:
Posted: 2012-04-04 @ 4:03pm PT
From what we know, the Global Payments hackers may have managed to gain access to Track 2 data, which includes the account number, the card's expiration date and some other pieces of data, but not the cardholder's name, address, SSN and the card security code. So cardholders should now be on a high alert for phishing attacks, which may be employed by the criminals as a way to obtain the missing data. Of course, that depends on the hackers having obtained their victims' email addresses, which we don't know. For more: http://blog.unibulmerchantservices.com/what-criminals-can-do-with-the-stolen-global-payments-data.
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