Consumer Security

California is poised to enact a consumer-friendly law requiring smartphone manufacturers to install "kill switches" -- that is, antitheft technology that would be activated by the carrier when a consumer alerts it that a device has been stolen or lost. The technology not only wipes the device of per...

Google on Wednesday announced that it has begun factoring websites' use of HTTPS into its search rankings, resulting in more favorable results for those that use the security-minded protocol. "Over the past few months we've been running tests taking into account whether sites use secure, encrypted c...

BlackBerry on Tuesday announced plans to acquire Secusmart, a developer of high-security voice and data encryption and anti-eavesdropping technologies. Mobile devices increasingly are being used for more critical tasks and to store more critical information, noted John Chen, BlackBerry's executive c...

Summer is almost here, and that means many of you probably have made significant headway laying the groundwork for your 2015 PCI audit. However, one important aspect of 3.0 preparations that doesn't always get the attention it should is documentation. If you've tackled PCI compliance in the past, th...

There is growing interest in the cloud. It sounds absolutely perfect for both consumers and businesses. Some are jumping in -- so why isn't everyone? There are many pros and cons. Many use it successfully to build and manage their growing business, but many others fall victim to problems. What, exac...

If there's a list of retailers that have not exposed their customers' data to a security breach, it just got shorter. The most recent company to confess to being hacked is eBay, which on Wednesday began sending emails urging customers to change their passwords. eBay announced that a cyberattack ha...

The Internet of Things, or IoT, consists of "uniquely identifiable objects and their virtual representations in an Internet-like structure," according to Wikipedia. The IoT is "the network of physical objects accessed through the Internet," according to Cisco Systems. In addition to there being no c...

Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser has a flaw that allows hackers to commandeer control of computers, FireEye reported Saturday. Although the never-seen-before vulnerability can be found in all versions of the browser, hackers are targeting IE versions 9 through 11, according to a blog post b...

Most e-commerce businesses already are preparing for their 2015 PCI audit, and plenty of changes are afoot when it comes to meeting 3.0 compliance requirements. Remember, compliance itself does not equal security, but rather is a reporting function of your security program. It is both a mandatory pa...

IBM on Thursday launched a set of software and consulting services to help fight fraud and financial crime. The so-called smarter counterfraud initiative draws from more than 500 fraud consulting experts, 290 fraud-related research patents, and the $24 billion IBM has invested in its Big Data and an...

New compliance guidelines went into effect earlier this year. While e-commerce organizations have until their 2015 audit to transition, the new controls are demanding enough operational and technical changes that smart businesses already have started preparing. If you're wondering where to get start...

Target acknowledged Thursday that it put information on a back burner that led to the compromise of more than 100 million customer records and will cost the company millions of dollars in losses. "We learned that after these criminals entered our network, a small amount of their activity was logged ...

Surfing the Internet last year was a dangerous proposition. On average, 200 samples of malicious software were collected every minute by McAfee Labs, the company reported Monday in its threat report for the Q4 2013. All kinds of Internet nastiness increased last year -- from ransomware and suspiciou...

Target reported financial results for the quarter during which it suffered a high-profile data breach, revealing how badly the company was stung by the security lapses. In the three months ending Feb. 1, net earnings dropped by 46 percent compared with the year-ago fourth quarter, from $961 million ...

Aimed at improving the security of payment card data and reducing fraud, PCI DSS 3.0 standard, which took effect on Jan. 1, introduces changes that extend across all 12 requirements. It no doubt will mean some shakeups for many organizations when it comes to their day-to-day culture and operations.