Case Study: The Home Depot Data Breach Dinesh Somala A00146897
Summary
This case study is about the data breach that had taken place in the home depot in 2014
Where in 56 million payment cards were stolen and the issues related to the occurrence.
Nowadays, hacking systems which get the data from payment card in retail stores is a popular issue. The use of stolen third-party vendor credentials and RAM scraping malwares were the main reasons for the data breach. A brief introduction of when and how the Home Depot’s data breach took place and how the home depot reacted to the issue and rectified it by
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On the off chance that Home Depot had a defencelessness management program, performing monthly vulnerability scans of the POS environment; they could have utilized the consequences of those outputs to show leadership the significance of the gaps in that environment and possibly started to mitigate the risk of that environment before the breach occurred.
For an in-depth defence approach, case study provides a series of things that describe about what is working nowadays for a secure data.
1. Updating the POS devices to a current, supported operating system is a must.
2. Ensure you have up-to-date antivirus software with HIPS capability.
3. You need to have automatic updates activated on the POS devices.
4. You need to enable P2P encryption on the POS devices.
5. The thing that you will need to implement is the disabling of all unnecessary ports and services on the POS devices.
The networking-based countermeasures that need to be implemented are:
1. You need to segregate the POS network from your corporate network.
2. Once you have segregated the POS network, you need to apply rules on the networking device responsible for the
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As we can see now-a-days, there are many replacements to card payments such as MOBILE PAYMENT options like Apple and Samsung Pay. Recently, Apple has launched finger print (TOUCH ID) payment option in its new Mac-book Pro. Almost every application has its own wallet to pay. But still, as we know that technology is any day not secured. It might not be vulnerable today. But, we cannot predict its non-vulnerability because one day or the other, it becomes vulnerable to any type of attack.
There are many ways to prevent data breaches and the research is still going on how to prevent Data Breaches as we know that technology is always vulnerable. The most important prevention measures to Data Breaches are:
1) CONTENT FILTERING: Which is to verify downloads whether they are malicious and proceed to download. This is simple and will yield good
In December 2013, Target was attacked by a cyber-attack due to a data breach. Target is a widely known retailer that has millions of consumers flocking every day to the retailer to partake in the stores wonders. The Target Data Breach is now known as the largest data breach/attack surpassing the TJX data breach in 2007. “The second-biggest attack struck TJX Companies, the parent company of TJMaxx and Marshall’s, which said in 2007 that about 45 million credit cards and debit cards had been compromised.” (Timberg, Yang, & Tsukayama, 2013) The data breach occurred to Target was a strong swift kick to the guts to not only the retailer/corporation, but to employees and consumers. The December 2013 data breach, exposed Target in a way that many would not expect to see and happen to any major retailer/corporation.
Affected: 40 million credit and debit card accounts, as well as data on 70 million
Credit to buy goods or services has been around since the early 1900s, when consumers would use credit to buy goods or services and pay for them at a later date. The bill would send the bank containing a description of the items bough, their price, tax, and overall total. The consumer would visit to the bank and pay it before a set date set by the retailer. Today, “7 out of 10” Americans have one or more credit cards. Credit Card companies introduced the ‘chip,’ a magnetic strip in cards to prevent fraud in brick-and-mortar stores, in late 2015. Major credit card companies, such as Visa and MasterCard, pushed the new cards onto their cardholders by mailing out chip cards and letting the cardholder know their regular card
Fleishman, B. G. (2007, May 5). Marshalls Use of WEP Leads to 200m Stolen Credit Card Numbers. Retrieved March 3, 2010, from http://wifinetnews.com/archives/2007/05/
...umer, Home Depot needs to focus on their employees, because the results of focusing on them will in turn relay good results for the consumers. When Home Depot is able to retain their reliable employees who are trained and educated about Home Depot and their products, then the employees will be able to relay the knowledge to their consumers.
Acohido, Byron, and Usa Today. "Hackers breach Heartland Payment credit card system." ABC News. ABC News Network, 21 Jan. 2009. Web. 7 Feb. 2014. .
Recently, many people have focused on credit card security. The credit card as a payment and financial instrument, it does separate purchases and payments (Berthoud and Kempson 1992). Many banks provide many kinds of credit cards, for example, LLOYDS bank actually have 10 types credit cards for different customers. However, when people are enjoying the convenience for using a credit card, they almost forget these potential problems on credit card security. Especially, online credit card fraud, organized crimes for credit cards and lost/stolen cards, when people found someone stole their accounts, maybe it was too later. Therefore,
For many years, Target has been hesitant to change credit card security and has shown little to no motivation to make changes. Due to the lack of security measures, hackers were able to steal the identities of many consumers. When credit cards are swiped, the transaction goes through the process of authorization, clearing and settlement. Each phase of the process entails the exchange of transaction data and money that needs to be settled and balanced. This process concludes when the cardholder pays for the goods or services listed on the monthly credit card statement. This is the current system that is used by Target. The company uses a customized version of the Hypercom Optimum L4150 High-Performance Multi-Lane Payment and Advertising Terminal which features a color glass touch screen that offers the brightest and the clearest interface for efficient interactive advertising at the point of sale (POS). “Global payment technology leader Hypercom Corporation delivers a full suite of high security, end-to-end electronic payment products and services” (CARTES & Identification, 2007). The benefits of this device and terminal included an advanced security structure which simplified hardware and application authentication, various privacy options which eliminated the need for add-on physical privacy shields that interfere with terminal usage by the consumer (CARTES &
Weak technology: -TJX was using a weak WEP (Wireless Equivalent Privacy) security protocol for its wireless networks within the stores, which can be hacked very quickly. WEP is used at the two lowest layers of the OSI model - the data link and physical layers; it therefore does not offer end-to-end security so it is not enough strong to prevent breaches (Beal, 2007). WPA is more secure than WEP. WPA aims to provide stronger wireless data encryption than WEP (Beal, 2007).
In the article, “Hackers Devise Wireless Methods for Stealing ATM Users' PINs”, Robertson speaks on how the effects of ATM hacking has been the fastest way for criminals to receive cash. He speaks of how high tech criminals have become so familiar with ATM theft, to the point of embedding fake number pads and card readers into gas pumps in order to retrieve confidential information. Robertson also speaks more on how fraudsters even apply for jobs that deal with technical-support so that they can learn to access personal data and other important information. Robertson said that these fraudsters go after companies and individuals who use ATM machines. Robertson states that the U.S Secret Service estimated the annual losses of ATM skimming to be more than $1 billion in 2008. To sum it up, he says that they are taking advantage of wireless ATM’s and other card readers to get away with data theft.
The use of credit and debit cards today are taking a tour in the sense that electronic cash is becoming more admissible as the world makes a switch towar...
Saleh, Z. (2013). The impact of identity theft on perceived. Journal of Internet Banking & Commerce, 18(2), 1-11. Retrieved from http://www.arraydev.com/commerce/jibc/
One example of bad hackers is what happened worldwide to Target companies. Target was hacked and millions of people’s credit card information was stolen (Riley, 2014). Many people think that the ones that hacked target hacked it because target gave away information, in reality they were as victim as the ones who’s information was stolen (Riley, 2014). Someone installed malware in Target's security and payme...
Without proper protection, any part of any network can be susceptible to attacks or unauthorized activity. Routers, switches, and hosts can all be violated by professional hackers, company competitors. In fact, according to several studies, more than half of all network attacks are waged internally. To determine the best ways to protect against attacks, we should understand the many types of attacks that can be instigated and the damage that these attacks can cause to data. The most common types of attacks include Denial of Service (DoS), password, an...
A cashless society will further improve the globalisation that characterise our present time. The computerised systems can be used to decrease the quantity of paper trail therefore substituting paper cash with cashless credits or electronic money transfers. However, in a cashless economy, this will change with certain crimes almost eradicated. It will also be faster to generate electronic payments than cash as Near Field Communications (NFC) chips make their way into more payments cards and mobile handsets as well providing protection not applicable to purchases made using cash. This technology is simple with low power wireless link evolved from radio-frequency identification (RFID) tech that can transfer small amounts of data between two devices identifying us and our bank account to a computer. Another benefit of drawing nearer to a cashless society is that other companies are providing pioneering cash-free solutions to the payment related problems we come across. For example, WisePay, a provider of e-payments services, is deploying technologies that ensure parents no longer have to worry about sending their children to school with cash to pay for meals, excursions and other fees that will eliminate the likelihood of being caught short for cash or children misplacing money. The Government also has valuable explanations why they may deem to turn away from cash. Due the main factor of printing and distributing cash, not to mention ensuring the economy is free from forgeries which are all costly endeavours estimating that the cost to society of using cash is between 0.5 and 1.5% of GDP annually. In addition, there are many technological innovations that propose there is a real enthusiasm for an alternative to cash with the upsurge...