Wednesday, April 15, 2009

If Cybercriminals Focus on PIN's, Shouldn't We Focus on Security?

Complete item: http://www.finextra.com/fullstory.asp?id=19911

Description: Hackers stole 285 million electronic records in 2008, more than in the previous four years combined, with the vast majority of breaches targeting the financial services industry, according to a study from Verizon.


Lat year Verizon investigated 90 breaches with 285 million records stolen, of which 93% were accounted for by the financial sector. The industry also accounted for 30% of the breaches - double its share for 2007.

Verizon says the increase reflects the recent trends in cybercriminal activity, especially the focus on acquiring PIN numbers to sell on the black market. 

Editor's Note:  If there's a FOCUS on acquiring PIN numbers to sell on the black market, then "SECURITY" needs to be the financial sector's FOCUS.  Again...92% of all breaches are software-based (see graph...top left) and if cybercriminals are "focusing" on obtaining PIN's take an "educated guess" as to which one will be targeted. 


Between the Graph above and the Graph-itti on the right...the writing is "so on the wall" and it's clearly showing us the future.

I KNOW I'm not the only one who see's it!

93% of breaches target financial sector, 92% target software...and 90% of attacks come from organized crime) Leave your comment below on the 93/92/90 data...


The story continues: Organized crime was responsible for (90%)  nine in 10 breaches, with an explosion of attacks targeting PIN data, which Verizon says hit the consumer much harder than typical signature-based counterfeit attacks.

The higher monetary value commanded by PIN data has spawned a cycle of innovation in attack methodologies, with criminals re-engineering their processes and developed new tools, such as memory-scraping malware, to steal this valuable data.

Editor's Note:  Click the memory-scraping malware link to read more into the future of software based PIN Debit at Wired.




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