Security

American companies need to take a stand against censorship on the Internet, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Thursday in a speech on Internet freedom delivered at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. "Censorship should not be in any way accepted by any company from anywhere," Clinton sai...

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard has undoubtedly made a significant improvement to the security of cardholder account numbers and other sensitive information within the payment card infrastructure. The standard lays out a strong set of requirements that merchants, acquirers and proce...

2009 was the first year since 2005 that the number of data breach incidents recorded actually dropped. If that makes you feel a little more secure -- there is a counter side. The same site reports on personal records that have been exposed: 220 million records in 2009 as compared with 35 million i...

As the number, power and flexibility of mobile devices has increased, so has their use for shopping. In 2008, a Nielsen survey found that 9 million people in the United States "have used their mobile phone to pay for goods or services," and many more expect to do so soon. In a 2009 survey by Deloitt...

In this age of phishing, hacking, identity fraud, and other forms of cybercrime, answering two simple questions -- "Who are you?" and "How can you prove it?" -- is fast becoming a critical requirement for all online business activities. Moreover, solving this "identity management" challenge has beco...

Hope was a slogan and a sentiment that played a major role in the U.S. presidential election of 2008, and hope continues to be the mindset of technology advocates pushing for cloud computing in the public sector. As a former government employee with a long history in the intelligence field, I can ea...

When stumbling around the Web in search of a new toaster or a great deal on a new pair of sneakers, it's not unusual for consumers to come across ominous policy dialogs warning of mismatched or expired SSL certificates. In fact, recent surveys have shown nearly 20 percent, or even more, of popular W...

Less than 20 days until Cyber Monday. You've got staffing queued up. Your warehouse is full. Your shipper is standing by. But have you considered what will happen on your Web site after a flood of qualified buyers click on the irresistible and precisely worded ad for your product or service? You've ...

Many consumers are still afraid of shopping online, and it's not hard to see why, with reports of fraud, identity theft, data loss and other security breaches regularly making the news. The fact is, though, online shopping is safer than ever before, and new and emerging security technologies, method...

The majority of global markets are growing significantly faster than the United States. Bill Gates has even stated that in the 21st century, a business must use e-commerce to survive. In this economy, thinking outside the proverbial box and expanding a company without taking on significant overhea...

The FBI official in charge of major cybercrime investigations told a international gathering of computer security experts last week that financial services companies have suffered massive thefts due to hackers. "The financial services sector has seen losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars in ...

While recent reports don't predict a major recovery for retailers this holiday season, the outlook for e-commerce sites is slightly more optimistic: 2009 will post an 18 percent increase in online holiday shopping over last year. For many consumers, though, the convenience of online shopping comes w...

Data migrations these days have become a necessary evil in every IT environment. The rapid rate at which hardware and software becomes outdated, coupled with a need to save costs by taking old assets off the books as soon as possible, means that data migrations are something no one can avoid. Vendor...

Fraud prevention, in its many layers and forms, is one of the most important services that can be provided to e-merchants. With each passing year, fraudsters become more experienced and new forms of fraud are developed. What is different in recent years is that we have been dealing with an economic...

Sometime between now and the year 2019, Comcast will start going after botnets and will stop sending malicious Web traffic to its customers. Google will send up more alarms if your search results include possibly infectious links. Microsoft and Apple will get better at plugging holes in their softwa...