From Tech And Business News
Michaels Store Next In Series Of POS System Security Breaches
I saw an incredibly depressing tweet yesterday. A man quoted his eighty year old grandma saying, “I’ll sure be happy when it’s my time to die. The world is falling apart with all of this hacking and credit cards being stolen.” Seriously, America does seem to be in a sad place, so I hate to announce that even more stores have suffered POS system security issues this week. Apparently, the hot thing right now is to plant malware into the point-of-sale terminals and steal credit card information as customers swiper their cards. Michaels, the favorite store of scrapbookers, artists, and crafty people in general, announced on Saturday that they are looking into a security breach. They have not announced whether or not there was a security breach but they believe that there is the possibility of one that might have affected customer’s credit card data. For Full Article: Michaels Stores Is Investigating Data Breach
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Google Glass User Detained By Homeland Security
Like something out of a crazy film, a Balkan immigrant was snatched out of his seat at a movie theatre for wearing Google Glass. While many business owners are concerned with the invention of the super tech glasses and have went so far as to ban them, the owner of this particular movie theatre found them to be such a big deal that he called in Homeland Security. The government agency showed up and interrogated the man for hours, convinced that he was filming the movie.
“About an hour into the movie, a guy comes near my seat, shoves a badge that had some sort of a shield on it, yanks the Google Glass off my face and says “follow me outside immediately,” he told The Gadgeteer. “It was quite embarrassing and outside of the theater there were about 5-10 cops and mall cops.” The agents accused him of illegally taping the movie with his Glass even though it was off.
Target Breach Into The 100 Million Range And Malware Was To Blame
Target Security Breach At 100 Million And Counting
Target issues a statement last Friday saying that they were wrong about the number of customers who had their data compromised during the security breach between November 27th and December 15th. Originally they believed that 40 million credit card and debit card numbers were stolen. Now they know that in addition to that, hackers walked away with 70 million email addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and physical addresses. The new number indicates that around 100 million customers were affected.
Could It Have Been Prevented?
Trust Guard, a company that specializes in PCI Compliance scanning, believes that this type of security breach is preventable. When they run a PCI scan on a merchant’s terminal they check for thousands of vulnerabilities. They scan a merchant’s web applications and networks remotely and non-intrusively based on the IP address provided. Their scans look for threats to the operating system, services and utilities used for financial or other sensitive transactions. Their PCI compliant scan is performed with an advanced scanning engine that will generate a detailed report listing any server and network vulnerabilities. Then merchants can properly resolve the security risks, helping to protect their system from Hackers, Trojans and Worms.
Target Breach Way Worse Than They Thought
The massive Target breach that took place over the holiday shopping season was apparently way bigger than the corporation thought. The U.S. company issued a statement on Friday that they have found that hackers also stole the personal information of at least 70 million customers including names, mailing addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses. Previously they believed that hackers stole data from 40 million credit and debit cards. The two sets of numbers are likely to overlap somewhat but experts are not sure yet according to Target spokeswoman. Some customers had their information stolen from a database and had not shopped in the Target stores during the breach from November 27th to December 15th.
HTML5 Bumps Other Tools Out Of The Way
Still not familiar with Google’s HTML5 based tool? Well, you should be. The new tool to build HTML5 capable sites and ads that excel at instead of falling flat when it comes to cross-screen experiences in web browsing. HTML5 is the new tool, out last fall, that is becoming the new standard for building web content. It’s replacing Flash and other old-school tools. The best part? HTML5 is easy! Well, as easy as programming can be I guess. It’s accessible and can make engaging content a breeze. For More on HTML5 check out this article.
Trust Guard In The News: Company Believes They Hold Solution To Prevent Target-Style Hacking
  Ogden, Utah (PRBuzz.com) January 6, 2014 — Imagine a world where you can shop both online and in stores like Target without being afraid that someone is going to drain your savings and destroy your credit. Trust Guard, a website security company, has said in recent interviews that they believe that prevention is key and that a secure world doesn’t have to be as difficult as it seems. Trust Guard offers a service called POS scanning that, according to Co-founder Dave Brandley, would prevent a Target-style security breach from happening in the future.The Target credit card breach is the second largest breach in U.S. history. Around 40 million credit cards were stolen between November 27th and December 15th 2013. Target announced the breach on December 19th, and later announced that the credit card numbers, the three-digit code on the back of the cards, as well as PIN numbers were compromised. Credit card companies and banks across the country are scrambling to issue new cards. Angry customers have taken to social media to shame Target and to demand better security measures. According to Trust Guard, if the breach was caused by malware as sources suspect, it could have been prevented.PCI POS Terminal Scanning scans the machines that customers swipe their credit card through for vulnerabilities and virus’. “The scary thing about the Target hack is that POS scanning or point of sale scanning could have prevented this from happening in the first place. It’s cheap, it’s effective, and it’s really inexcusable that a lot of merchants don’t even know that POS Terminal Scanning exists.” Said Co-founder, Dave Brandley, Trust Guard.Stories about drained savings accounts and weird charges on credit cards are flooding the internet. Experts are asking for customers to check their credit card statements for the next year for suspicious charges and many are advising customers to get a new card as a preventative measure.Brandley advises customers on how to keep themselves safe now and in the future, “The best thing that people can do is cancel their cards and get new ones immediately. Checking bank statements for strange activity for the next year will be exhausting. Also, as a preventative measure in the future, customers should check for some kind of POS terminal scan seal on the terminals themselves before they swipe their cards. If there is no seal, they should ask the merchant to have scanning done. A scanned terminal is a safe terminal.”
About Trust Guard: Trust Guard LLC. is a division of Global Marketing Strategies LLC. (GMS) – An eCommerce company with over 15 years of online sales and security experience. Trust Guard specializes in Website Security, Privacy, and Business Verification Seals that build customer trust and loyalty, increase online sales, and improve website credibility. Trust Guard also offers PCI-Compliant security scanning and PCI POS Terminal Scanning that checks for over 59,000 vulnerabilities hackers might use to compromise websites or POS terminals. Contact: Co-founder Dave Brandley 1-877-848-2731 |
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Alaska Banks Scramble To Issue New Cards After The Target Breach
There are Three Target stores in Alaska and multiple financial institutions are scrambling to issue new cards to customers since the massive credit card Breach was announced on December 19th. As of Dec. 27, around 2,200 debit and credit cards issued by Denali Alaskan Federal Credit Union were affected, according to Eileen Thompson, associate vice president for marketing. At First National Bank Alaska, about 2,000 cards were affected. At Alaska-based Northrim Bank, 1,076 customers have been affected so far, according to Jay Blury, director of marketing and communications.
Credit Card Startup Has A Way To Thwart Hacking (Hint: It Involves A Card That Can Read Fingerprints)
A Houston startup thinks that they have part of the solution to Target-style hacking. Their company has produced credit cards with a fingerprint reader and microprocessor. The card, called Epic One, uses new technology that offers dual authentication, two different pieces of information to make sure you are who you say you are before making a purchase. Theoretically the Epic One card never exposes your Visa V +0.28%, MasterCard MA -0.42%, Amex or other cards to the network where most of the data hijacking occurs. For the full article check out this Epic article on Forbes.
Video: Target Security Breach And How To Protect Yourself
The Target security breach will impact over 40 million Americans. The POS security breach resulted in stolen credit card numbers and PIN numbers. Everything they need to take everything you’ve got. New stories are already pouring in about savings accounts being emptied and credit scores damaged. While Target and credit card companies are doing the best that they can to pick up the pieces there are other things that you can do to protect yourself now and in the future.
Five Great Sources For E-commerce Success
Increase Traffic. More Traffic Means More Money. One of the first challenges of having an online business is getting people to see it. The second challenge is getting new customers to trust your site enough to purchase from it. This simple list is a quick and direct basic list on how to get your site seen.
Build A Solid Online Business: This is a blog by a man who has managed to really make the internet work for him. Just one of his efforts makes six figures per month in ads alone. How did he do it? Well, lucky for all of us he gives away his secrets on this site.
The Importance Of Trust In Business: Trust has always been essentially for conducting business and it’s never been more important than it is now. If you are selling merchandise from your website, you have to convince potential customers that you are safe and secure. They can’t pop into your store and shake your hand, and they can’t inspect the merchandise before they purchase it. The only way to convince them is by reputation and third-party verification.
Third-Party-Verification: Third-Party Verification allows your business to convince potentially customers that your business is safe, secure, and reliable. The extra trust goes a long way, improving sales conversion almost immediately.
Internet Retailer: If you own a business online regardless of size, from startup to corporate 500 status, this is the top source for e-commerce news. Study it daily.
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Epic eCommerce 