Zappos has remained tight-lipped about the nature of their data breach this week. As many as 24 million consumer accounts may have been accessed through an attack on their server in Kentucky. That is as detailed as they’re willing to go. Full credit card numbers were not stolen, since those were stored separately. It would [...]

Several researchers the University of Michigan have succeeded in cracking  the RSA security technology which protects all ecommerce and online banking transactions. The university scientists found that they could deduce tiny pieces of a private key by injecting slight fluctuations in a device’s power supply as it was processing encrypted messages. In a little more [...]

First Direct bank in the UK has been the first British bank to embrace Twitter. Does that really surprise anyone? As a 100% online bank, they’ve maintained a business pace a few clicks ahead of competitors in online services. But last weekend their clients and colleagues got a little surprise. First Direct’s Twitter account was [...]

The good folks over at Credit Card Processing Gist posted an article yesterday naming the flaws of Verififed By Visa and MasterCard’s Secure Code. Flawed technology and poor design meet good economics – telling us that price is the trump card when it comes to online authentication. When we talk about the authentication space there [...]

We read stories about phishing and data breaches and we get worried. Some of us start thinking that maybe we’re better off (security-wise) with paper-based banking. Sending checks, receiving statements in the mail, paying bills the old fashioned way – manually with a checkbook and a stamp. But as Jean Chatzky said this morning on [...]

Two studies show that young people are more likely to be victims of online fraud.  You’d think that since most of them have not experienced a world without Internet and email, they’d be more knowledgeable about phishing and other schemes.  But the insurance group CPP reports that the 16 to 24 age group is most [...]

Everyone is excited about the new Google phone – Nexus One. I am actually considering making the jump from iPhone to an Android-based phone. The Android Market is the Google’s answer to iTunes App store. In an interesting twist of events, a rogue app called “Droid09” was uploaded to Android Market, claiming to be an [...]

The FBI is advising small businesses – the same ones often operating on a shoestring – to use a dedicated PC for their online banking. It would seem that hackers are targeting small businesses, universities, and local businesses with keylogging malware – that is, software that records the keystrokes typically used to enter a password, [...]

CA, Inc. issued a report last week detailing the top security threats of 2009, as well as predictions for 2010. What’s surprising? Fake or rogue security software was the most prevalent threat of 2008. It seems criminals know that we as a population have a weakness for security products. We want to be safe, so [...]

The problem: banking websites, while highly useful and in fact necessary in today’s virtual economy, are also highly vulnerable to fraudulent attacks. They could approach it the way AT&T did when they realized that 3% of users (iPhone owners) exploit 40% of bandwith – AT&T started looking for ways to discourage iPhone users from accessing [...]