We of course know the recent tale of an Eastern European criminal group that stole more than a $100 million from banks and businesses around the world; all transactions made with syndicates supposedly existing on the border with China.
This one is a step-up in terms of how the hack was executed. A US based company in the northeast lost $197,000 but recovered some of the money in a barter-like trade off. It’s no surprise that the chinese were involved, to be specific, the chinese authorities. The barter was a carton of cigarettes and a lump sum of money.
When the victim (name to stay anonymous) company’s accountant logged into the bank’s portal to deposit money, she was ‘redirected to a Web page that said the bank’s site was experiencing technical difficulties and that she needed to provide a one-time token to validate her request’, reports Krebs on Security. Actually, the criminals from behind-the-scene took over control of her browser after injecting a Trojan horse program. Right after producing the token, the thieves made a wire transfer of the money to a company in Harbin, a city on the chinese border with Russia.
The story gets ridiculous and obscene after the victim goes to the bank to report and get help since the bank had branches in China as well. The bank spokesperson apparently told the victim that the crime was committed against the victim and not the bank. What?
This story is not unlike what is happening in the retail world. The retailer is left to deal with the implications after a breach. The card-issuing banks are not responsible, the point-of-sale vendors are not responsible and all other third-party vendors are off the hook as well. The only entity responsible is the retailer/merchant.
Get help from Omega ATC to protect your data anywhere in your card-data-environment or outside of it. If your stores are breached, not only will your daily business activities be disrupted, you will end up paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. So act now, as every retailer should show proof of continuous data security.
Email Security@www.omegasecure.com or call 636-557-7777. Omega’s solutions and services cover the entire gamut of retail data security. Protecting a retailer’s data is our only focus. You can count on Omega.
