Credit cards equipped with smart chip technology are slowing edging towards reality here in the States. On Friday, The White House announced it would start requiring government-issued credit and debit cards be equipped with chips. That means folks who receive federal benefits on debit cards will get new plastic with [Keep reading]
Home Depot Inc. is investigating “unusual activity” and working with banking partners and law enforcement, the firm told me Tuesday. The confirmation comes after Security researcher Brian Krebs reported a credit card hacker attack on the firm. According to a post on Krebs’ website, the theft is similar to the massive hack [Keep reading]
Expect plenty more bad news like today’s Dairy Queen credit card hack story. As they say, there’s plenty more where that came from. There’s something a little different about this latest spat of credit card hacks, however, and you should know about it. Brian Krebs told the world last night [Keep reading]
Buy food at a grocery store? You’ve probably been hacked. In the latest in a never-ending chain of credit card hacks, Albertson’s grocery stores announced Friday that its payment processor had been victim of a massive cybercrime. Impacted brands include Albertson’s, ACME Markets, Jewel-Osco, and Shaw’s and Star Markets. The hack [Keep reading]
A billion stolen passwords sounds like a lot, but it’s no cause for alarm. After all, you knew passwords weren’t keeping your money or information safe, right? Back in 2005…yes, nearly 10 years ago…the FFIEC (government banking regulators) said passwords were inadequate protection for financial institutions. What does the [Keep reading]
Russian hackers who hijacked 1,600 StubHub user accounts and stole $1 million worth of tickets were indicted by the Manhattan District Attorney Wednesday, a case that brings to light another frontier in fraud fighting — and another systematic weakness exposed by cyber criminals. The hackers’ scheme was ingenious. They impersonated [Keep reading]
What ailment is so devastating that its symptoms can range from an incorrect medical diagnosis, to (virtually) killing you, to hurting your kids’ chances of getting college financial aid? That distinctly digital-age malady? Identity theft. In a world of overused metaphors, this one is spot-on: If Franz Kafka were writing [Keep reading]
I received an unexpected email from a friend today with a Google doc attachment. It was a friendly note, so friendly that I did consider clicking on it — even with about 20 years experience watching all manner of hacker tricks. Fortunately, I stopped and asked a simple question, which [Keep reading]
If and when consumers begin receiving credit cards with embedded chips en masse from their banks, it’ll mark a significant change in the way Americans pay for things. Visa’s Chief Risk Officer, Ellen Richey, told me in an exclusive interview recently that for many consumers, the only change will be [Keep reading]
This is sure to raise alarm with consumers. First American Bank in Illinois issued a warning to consumers on Friday, telling them to stop swiping their credit cards in Chicago taxis. The banks says in a notice on its Website that a system which processes back-seat plastic card transaction for [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan