Security

In March, Visa announced that it was removing Heartland and RBS WorldPay, two credit card processors that had experienced major data breaches in the prior months, from its list of PCI-compliant companies. The action is seen by many in the industry as being mainly for show, but the removal of the pro...

A hacker -- or a group of hackers -- is attempting to hold hostage some 8 million records purportedly acquired from the Virginia Prescription Monitoring Program, according to ransom note posted to the program's Web site on April 30. Few statements have been released by Virginia state authorities, ot...

It's tax time again, and the online scammers are crawling out of the woodwork. Their goals are to intercept personal information about taxpayers nationwide, and in some ways, they may be benefiting from the IRS' push for people to electronically file their returns. Some scammers are "phishing" taxpa...

A bill introduced in the U.S. Senate would give the government dramatic new powers to regulate and enforce federal standards for cybersecurity. The government already monitors and regulates military networks, of course. However, the "Cybersecurity Act of 2009" would extend that control to private sy...

Data loss prevention has traditionally been considered an on-premise activity. Software as a Service, by definition, is not. However, DLP and SaaS represent major trends in email security with high visibility, and they are often driven by corporate initiatives and senior level decision makers. Simil...

Everyone knows cyber-crime is a cat and mouse game, usually involving a bit of social engineering to trick unsuspecting computer users into clicking a link, installing some software or providing valuable information. The latest trick in crooks' bags: "recession malware." This is a new generation of ...

Everyone's talking about Google's next big acquisition, but whether the company will actually make it is far from certain. The services the potential target offers are not quite in line with what Google does -- but then again, Google has never followed a straight linear product development road map....

In a time of economic crisis, there tends to be an increase in the number of people that turn to criminal activity. Although petty crime is usually one area that shows a significant upswing, an additional form of criminal activity on the rise is fraud. Before you can stop fraud, you need to know how...

The cost of data breaches continued to rise in 2008, according to a new study from network security company PGP and the Ponemon Institute. The study, which was sponsored by PGP, surveyed 43 organizations across 17 different sectors and evaluated the financial consequences of data breaches involving ...

Poorly secured corporate Web sites are becoming a top cybersecurity threat as companies are increasingly putting their own clients at risk, according to the latest IBM X-Force Trend and Risk Report, released on Monday. This growing online threat to consumers is the result of two trends: one, the lon...

Massive credit card payment processor Heartland Payment Systems disclosed Tuesday that a security breach within its processing system some time in 2008 resulted in the potential exposure of millions of credit card and debit card numbers. No cardholder Social Security numbers, addresses or telephone ...

The current economic environment has consumers tightening their purse strings, carefully scrutinizing each dollar they spend. Scaling back on expenditures, including investments, they're not taking any chances with the money they do have. There is little trust in the economy or the future. To get co...

Identity theft has had a crippling effect on more than 9 million Americans, according to the Federal Trade Commission, and businesses that collect or hold identifying information report millions of dollars in annual losses as a result of these crimes. New identity theft regulations for creditors -- ...

Until recently, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act -- covering a myriad of activities related to hacking and intellectual property theft -- was just one of many questionable federal laws on the books. Then came the case of Lori Drew. Drew was widely vilified for provoking a young girl into committing ...

The old adage about a sucker being born every minute is no less true among respondents to spam. Dishonest people have always been trying to make a fast buck by duping others into confidence scams, and the Web has give those people an easy way to communicate with more potential marks. However, modern...