Hacking, Why Not?

Red Bank, April 4, 2009/The FraudBlog Newsletter/- Recent congressional hearings have shown evidence that terrorists are more involved than previously believed in cybercrime. In short, evidence suggests terrorists are actively training new recruits on how to hack into computer systems, perform phishing operations and to move money using stolen credit cards and bank accounts. In his jailhouse manifesto, Imam Samudra (linked to the Bali terrorist bombing), urged his Muslim radical comrades to declare holy war not on the battlefield, but rather in cyberspace. Imam describes how America's computer infrastructure and networks are vulnerable to hacking, credit card and money laundering.

PCI Compliance does not Gurantee Protection from breach

While the PCI standards have done a tremndous job at helping to secure sensitive credit card data, organiztions still need to take proactive measures to secure their systems from hacking. There have been several documented cases where PCI compliant organizations have been hacked and card data has been stolen. The most notable recent case involved Hannaford Food stores where 4 million credit cards / debit cards were comprimised when fraudsters loaded malicious software on the companies 300 servers. The software allowed the fraudsters to pull and store credit card and PIN data as it was being processed from the stores.

To read more on this article go to the CS Decisions website and view the May 2008 article from Pat Pape entitled: "Secure your System".