Is Mastercard Going With Selfies?

Mastercard has announced plans to roll out a verification technology that requires a selfie to process payments. The industry’s latest move in the shameless act of narcissism is a biometric face scanning technology that will let customers replace their PINs with their face, according to MasterCard chief product security officer, Ajay Bhalla. Bhalla told CNN Money that the multinational financial services corporation has teamed up with all the major phone manufacturers to deliver the technology. “The new generation, which is into selfies, I think they’ll find it cool. They’ll embrace it. This [app] seamlessly integrates biometrics into the overall payment experience,” he said. “You can choose to use your fingerprint or your face. You tap it, the transaction is OK’ed and you’re done.” The selfie payment feature will roll out on a trial basis first in the US, with a full scale deployment to follow at an unspecified date. The system requires users to blink when prompted once they have held their device at eye-level for the checkout process to complete. This ensures that potential cyber crooks cannot use a still image of the user to hack into their personal account. MasterCard announced last month that all retail outlets across Europe will accept contactless payments by 2020, paving the way for wider adoption of mobile payment solutions. Mike Cowan, head of emerging payments products at MasterCard, revealed at the company’s Future of Payments event in London that Europeans will soon be able to tap to pay anywhere. “From the beginning of 2016 any new payment terminal that gets deployed must accept contactless, and every single terminal must accept it by 2020,” he said. This means that new point of sale terminals must adhere to the new standard on deployment from 1 January 2016, while existing terminals that don’t yet support contactless payments must be replaced by 1 January 2020 at the latest. Source

Cisco Warns Of Bug In Virtual App

Cisco has warned of a default Secure Shell vulnerability in three of its virtual applications.

The flaw could allow attackers to decrypt traffic exchanged in the services, and has been detailed in a Cisco security advisory.

It affects Cisco’s Web Security Virtual Appliance (SMAv), Email Security Virtual Appliance and Security Management Virtual Appliance, which are already commercially available.

Cisco said that it “is not aware of any public announcements or malicious use of the vulnerabilities”, but warned that attackers who got hold of the private keys could decrypt communications with a man-in-the-middle attack.

The default private encryption keys were preinstalled on all three of the products, a move which is considered bad security practice.

“Successfully exploiting this vulnerability on Cisco SMAv allows an attacker to decrypt communication toward SMAv, impersonate SMAv, and send altered data to a configured content appliance,” the advisory said.

“An attacker can exploit this vulnerability on a communication link toward any content security appliance that was ever managed by any SMAv.”

Cisco has released a patch which deletes the preinstalled SSH keys and explains how customers can correct the problem.

The Cisco-sa-20150625-ironport SSH Keys Vulnerability Fix comes as part of several product upgrades, and must be manually installed from a command line interface.

Cisco’s advisory said that the patch is not required for physical hardware appliances, or for virtual appliance downloads or upgrades after 25 June.

Cisco revealed details of a new point of sale attack earlier this year that could part firms from money and customers from personal data.

The threat, called PoSeidon by the Cisco team, came at a time when eyes were on security breaches at firms like Target.

Cisco said in a blog post that PoSeidon is a threat that has the ability to breach machines and scrape them for credit card information.

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Apple Pay Headed To Canada

Apple Inc is gearing up to launch its electronic payments service in Canada in November, the first international expansion of Apple Pay, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The iPhone maker is in talks with Canada’s six biggest banks, Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto-Dominion Bank , Bank of Nova Scotia, Bank of Montreal, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and National Bank of Canada, the people told the Journal.

The banks are open to an agreement, but are not happy with Apple’s fee proposals and are worried about security vulnerabilities like the ones that U.S. banks experienced, the Journal said, citing the people.

It was still unclear if all six Canadian banks would launch Apple Pay at the same time, the Journal said.

Apple launched the service, a mobile payment app that allows consumers to buy things by holding their iPhone6 and 6 Plus devices up to a reader, in the United States in October.

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Target Settles Security Breach

Target is reportedly close to paying out $10m to settle a class-action case that was filed after it was hacked and stripped of tens of millions of peoples’ details.

Target was smacked by hackers in 2013 in a massive cyber-thwack on its stores and servers that put some 70 million people’s personal information in harm’s way.

The hack has had massive repercussions. People are losing faith in industry and its ability to store their personal data, and the Target incident is a very good example of why people are right to worry.

As well as tarnishing Target’s reputation, the attack also led to a $162m gap in its financial spreadsheets.

The firm apologized to its punters when it revealed the hack, and chairman, CEO and president Gregg Steinhafel said he was sorry that they have had to “endure” such a thing

Now, according to reports, Target is willing to fork out another $10m to put things right, offering the money as a proposed settlement in one of several class-action lawsuits the company is facing. If accepted, the settlement could see affected parties awarded some $10,000 for their troubles.

We have asked Target to either confirm or comment on this, and are waiting for a response. For now we have an official statement at Reuters to turn to. There we see Target spokeswoman Molly Snyder confirming that something is happening but not mentioning the 10 and six zeroes.

“We are pleased to see the process moving forward and look forward to its resolution,” she said.

Not available to comment, not that we asked, will be the firm’s CIO at the time of the hack. Thirty-year Target veteran Beth Jacob left her role in the aftermath of the attack, and a replacement was immediately sought.

“To ensure that Target is well positioned following the data breach we suffered last year, we are undertaking an overhaul of our information security and compliance structure and practices at Target,” said Steinhafel then.

“As a first step in this effort, Target will be conducting an external search for an interim CIO who can help guide Target through this transformation.”

“Transformational change” pro Bob DeRodes took on the role in May last year and immediately began saying the right things.

“I look forward to helping shape information technology and data security at Target in the days and months ahead,” he said.

“It is clear to me that Target is an organization that is committed to doing whatever it takes to do right by their guests.”

We would ask Steinhafel for his verdict on DeRodes so far and the $10m settlement, but would you believe it, he’s not at Target anymore either having left in the summer last year with a reported $61m golden parachute.

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Yet Another Retailer System Hacked

Women’s clothing retailer Bebe Stores has become the latest in a growing list of national retailers to be hit by an attack on its credit card payment system.

The company said Friday that the cardholder name, account number, expiration date, and verification code could have been stolen by hackers who apparently had access to the company’s payment processing system between Nov. 8 and 26.

The incident came to light in late November when Bebe said it noticed suspicious activity on computers that operate the payment processing system. Stores affected were the roughly 200 it operates in the U.S., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

“If you used a payment card at a U.S., Puerto Rico or U.S. Virgin Islands store during this time frame, you should review your account statements for any unauthorized activity,” it said in a message to customers.

The last couple of years have been bad ones for the safety of credit card data at major U.S. retailers. Millions of credit and debit card numbers have been compromised in breaches at retailers, including Target, Home Depot, PF Chang’s restaurants, Super Valu grocery stores, Neiman Marcus, UPS Store and others.

In many cases, the attacks were targeted at payment processing terminals and used sophisticated malware that stole card details as consumers swiped their cards. Many of the thefts were only discovered after the card numbers appeared for sale on Internet hacking forums.

Such was the case with Bebe Stores. First news of the hack came earlier this week through the closely followed Krebs on Security blog.

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Will The Drupal Flaw Be Catastrophic?

The Drupal web content management system has been exposed as having backdoor access that could deliver your site to hackers.

The problem is not particularly new. Drupal warned about it earlier this month, but it still needs tackling as millions of websites may be at risk.

Drupal said that sites running version 7 really ought to have upgraded to 7.32 by now, because not doing so leaves them as open as a torn tea bag.

Initially the alert was about the threat, but the firm has updated its earlier advice and is now warning of in-the-wild attacks.

That earlier advice was about a problem in a database API. “A vulnerability in this API allows an attacker to send specially crafted requests resulting in arbitrary SQL execution,” warned Drupal in a security alert.

“Depending on the content of the requests this can lead to privilege escalation, arbitrary PHP execution, or other attacks. This vulnerability can be exploited by anonymous users.”

More recent information from the firm points users toward the released upgrade, and informs them that attacks started not long after the initial announcement.

“You should proceed under the assumption that every Drupal 7 website was compromised unless updated or patched before Oct 15th, 11pm UTC, that is seven hours after the announcement,” it said, adding that, even when updated, sites will have some cleaning up to do.

“If you have not updated or applied this patch, do so immediately, then continue reading this announcement; updating to version 7.32 or applying the patch fixes the vulnerability but does not fix an already compromised website,” it explains.

“If you find that your site is already patched but you didn’t do it, that can be a symptom that the site was compromised – some attacks have applied the patch as a way to guarantee they are the only attacker in control of the site.”

Gavin Millard, EMEA technical director at Tenable Network Security, advised people to follow Drupal’s advice.

“The so-called ‘Drupageddon’ vulnerability could have easily led to exploitation of any systems running the vulnerable code. With such an easy to exploit flaw, the chance of exfiltration of data or further exploitation are high,” he said.

“For those who have good security controls, reviewing of logs and traffic directed at the sites following the vulnerability being announced and the patch applied is common sense and highly advisable, with appropriate action taken if indicators of compromise are found.

“For those who don’t have such a good level of security or visibility into the logs, the advice from the Drupal team should be heeded. If you don’t know if you were exploited you should assume that you have been.”

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MasterCard Testing New Fingerprint Reader

MasterCard is trying out a contactless payment card with a built-in fingerprint reader that can authorize high-value payments without requiring the user to enter a PIN.

The credit-card company showed a prototype of the card in London on Friday along with Zwipe, the Norwegian company that developed the fingerprint recognition technology.

The contactless payment card has an integrated fingerprint sensor and a secure data store for the cardholder’s biometric data, which is held only on the card and not in an external database, the companies said.

The card also has an EMV chip, used in European payment cards instead of a magnetic stripe to increase payment security, and a MasterCard application to allow contactless payments.

The prototype shown Friday is thicker than regular payment cards to accommodate a battery. Zwipe said it plans to eliminate the battery by harvesting energy from contactless payment terminals and is working on a new model for release in 2015 that will be as thin as standard cards.

Thanks to its fingerprint authentication, the Zwipe card has no limit on contactless payments, said a company spokesman. Other contactless cards can only be used for payments of around €20 or €25, and some must be placed in a reader and a PIN entered once the transaction reaches a certain threshold.

Norwegian bank Sparebanken DIN has already tested the Zwipe card, and plans to offer biometric authentication and contactless communication for all its cards, the bank has said.

MasterCard wants cardholders to be able to identify themselves without having to use passwords or PINs. Biometric authentication can help with that, but achieving simplicity of use in a secure way is a challenge, it said.

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Hackers Infiltrate Jimmy Johns

Sandwich restaurant chain Jimmy John’s said there was a potential data breach involving customers’ credit and debit card information at 216 of its stores and franchised locations on July 30.

An intruder stole log-in credentials from the company’s vendor and used the credentials to remotely access the point-of-sale systems at some corporate and franchised locations between June 16 and Sept. 5, the company said.

The chain is the latest victim in a series of security breaches among retailers such as Target Corp, Michaels Stores Inc and Neiman Marcus.

Home Depot Inc  said last week some 56 million payment cards were likely compromised in a cyberattack at its stores, suggesting the hacking attack at the home improvement chain was larger than the breach at Target Corp.

More than 12 of the affected Jimmy John’s stores are in Chicago area, according to a list disclosed by the company.

The breach has been contained and customers can use their cards at its stores, the privately held company said.

Jimmy John’s said it has hired forensic experts to assist with its investigation.

“Cards impacted by this event appear to be those swiped at the stores, and did not include those cards entered manually or online,” Jimmy John’s said.

The Champaign, Illinois-based company said stolen information may include the card number and in some cases the cardholder’s name, verification code, and/or the card’s expiration date.

Source

UPS Breached

Credit and debit card information belonging to customers made purchases at 51 UPS Store Inc. locations in 24 states this year may have been illegally accessed as the result of an intrusion into the company’s networks.

In a statement on Wednesday, UPS said it was recently notified by law enforcement officials about a “broad-based malware intrusion” of its systems.

A subsequent investigation by an IT security firm showed that attackers had installed previously unknown malware on systems in more than four-dozen stores to gain access to cardholder data. The affected stores represent about 1% of the 4,470 UPS Store locations around the country.

The intrusion may have exposed data on transactions conducted at the stores between Jan. 20 and Aug. 11, 2014. “For most locations, the period of exposure to this malware began after March 26, 2014,” UPS said in a statement.

In addition to payment card information, the hackers also appear to have gained access to customer names, as well as postal and email addresses.

Each of the affected locations is individually owned and runs private networks that are not connected to other stores, UPS added. The company provided alist of affected locations.

The breach is the third significant one to be disclosed in the past week. Last Thursday, grocery store chain Supervalu announced it had suffered a malicious intrusion that exposed account data belonging to customers who had shopped at about 180 of the company’s stores in about a dozen states. The breach also affected customers from several other major grocery store chains for which Supervalu provides IT services.

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PoS Cyber Attacks Up In 2013

A third of data intrusion investigated by security firm Trustwave last year involved compromises of point-of-sale (POS) systems and over half of all intrusions targeted payment card data.

Even though POS systems remained a significant target for attackers, as suggested by several high-profile data breaches disclosed by large retailers over the past six months, the largest number of data theft incidents last year actually involved e-commerce sites, Trustwave said Wednesday in a report that compiled data from 691 data breach investigations conducted by the company around the world.

E-commerce intrusions accounted for 54 percent of investigated data breaches and POS system intrusions accounted for 33 percent, Trustwave said. A separate report published by Verizon in April also pointed to Web application and PoS attacks as leading causes of security incidents with confirmed data disclosure last year.

According to Trustwave, over half of intrusions targeted payment-card data, with such data being stolen from e-commerce transactions in 36 percent of incidents and from POS transactions in 19 percent of attacks.

In Western Europe in particular, where countries have rolled out EMV — chip-and-PIN payment card transactions — cybercriminals shifted their focus from POS devices to e-commerce platforms, said John Yeo, EMEA Director at Trustwave. “EMV has changed the pattern of compromises when it comes to payment-card-specific data.”

However, a significant increase in the theft of sensitive, non-payment-card data, was also observed last year. This data includes financial credentials, personally identifiable information, merchant ID numbers and internal company communications, and was stolen in 45 percent of incidents, Trustwave said in the report.

Customer records containing personally identifiable information can possibly be used to perpetrate identity fraud and are sought after on the black market, so that’s why there’s been an uptick in attacks focusing on such data, Yeo said.

Only about a third of victim companies were able to self-detect data breaches, Trustwave found. In 58 percent of cases, breaches were identified by regulatory bodies, the credit card companies or merchant banks.

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