Max Thielen
Last year Target fell victim to a massive cyber attack that compromised data on millions of its customers. The breach lasted from November 27th to December 15th. During that time, information on 40 million debit and credit accounts was stolen. In addition, Target would later report that another 70 million customers’ name, phone number, and mailing address had been stolen (Whitney).
A piece of malware that retails on the black market for around $2,000 is believed to be the culprit for the stolen data. When installed on point-of-sale (POS) devices, this malware will record the data from all cards swiped through the machine (Smith). The hackers were able to steal vendor credentials from BMC Software, the company that developed the IT management software used by Target. The hackers used the account name “Best1_user” and password “BackupU$r” to access the machine. The “Best1_user” account name is restricted from logging in to the computer. It is actually an administrator account used by the software to do basic tasks (Smith). Through the administrator account access, the criminals were able to install a program called “BladeLogic” which mimicked another program developed by BMC. This process; replacing legitimate programs with those designed to spy, steal, or manipulate data, is called usurpation (Kroenke 312).
The hackers exploited a vulnerability in Target’s system to gain access. A vulnerability is a point of entrance that can be used to access private data (Kroenke 310). With the case of Target, the vulnerability was the unsafe administrative account. Many other companies have vulnerabilities such as in the POS system, or online credit orders. With all of the threats to information security ...
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...rus software regularly. Correct security training that encourages using strong passwords and keeping valuable data out of texts and emails (Kroenke). If Target can learn from its previous mistakes and follow proper safety techniques, it should be able to effectively prevent another cyber attack in the future.
Sources
1. Kroenke, David M. Experiencing MIS. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008. Print.
2. Smith, Chris. "Expert Who First Revealed Massive Target Hack Tells Us How It Happened." BGR. BGR, 16 Jan. 2014. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
3. White, Martha C. "Target's Hacking Fix Is Itself a Huge Problem." Business Money Targets Hacking Fix Is SecondRate Says Consumer Reports Comments. N.p., 11 Feb. 2014. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
4. Whitney, Lance. "How Target Detected Hack but Failed to Act." CNET. N.p., 13 Mar. 2014. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
For example credit card transactions and security breaches have occurred which have cost the company million of dollars. Target Corporation must do a better job of securing its data to prevent future loss in profit, sales, and stock values.
The Minneapolis based Target Corporation announced in December that criminals forced their way into the company’s computer system. The data breach compromised 40 million credit and debit card accounts of customers who shopped during the holiday season between November 27 and December 15, 2013. The data captured was far broader than originally imagined as hackers gained access to 70 million customer’s personal information including names, home addresses, telephone numbers, and email addresses. Additionally, expiration dates, debit-card PIN numbers, and the embedded code on the magnetic strip of the card were stolen.
Target’s collection and possible sale of private information could go against basic principles of confidentiality since people trust that they are not revealing information that is confidential. One expects that their personal information is protected and not just provided to anyone who is willing to pay for it. At the same time, people expect Target not to be buying influence ...
Target bank is called the Target National Bank. It is owned by the Target Corporations itself and all the receivables go into Target has approximately 1,600 million dollars worth of lines of credits from twenty five different banks, approximately half the worth of the line is used and is due back for payment June 2005, with an extension all the way up to June 2006. The other half of the payment is due June 2008. The expected long term rate of securities rate for October 31 2004 was 8.5 %.
Scott Schober is an American businessman, cybersecurity expert, and CEO of Berkeley Vartironics Systems, a company that produces wireless analysis and threat detection systems. As a leading expert in security commonly seen on television and radio news shows, Schober is a frequent target for those he uncovers and defends against: hackers. In Hacked Again, Schober describes the feelings of panic and exposure that he felt after being hacked, imparts security knowledge and tips gained from working in the industry, and describes recent security breaches to help readers stay informed of how their information can be discovered and stolen in sometimes only a few clicks.
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
Compared to its rivals Target has not diversified in the retail industry, which makes the company vulnerable to changing shopping patterns and economic downturns.
By implementing effective policies and controls, and maintaining a dynamic defense strategy, DTL Power can safeguard its information systems. Team Results Unfortunately, hacktivists that were threatening DTL Power managed to penetrate our defenses and take over part of our system. This threat actor was not in our system for a long period of time, but was still able to affect the uptime of our system. However, even though DTL Power was breached, the controls that were in place prevented the threat from becoming critical. As the summary report in Figure 1 displays, our Global National Security Index was > 100 and our Security Index was > 100.
The main one is the established and loved brand name that is well liked by customers. Along with this, Target has the perception of being a fun place to shop that comes with an experience. Unlike Wal-Mart, Target has the ability to position themselves as a middle class, hip and more fashionable store to shoppers of this generation (Target Corporation SWOT Analysis, n.d.). Target’s weaknesses include tis business model based on supercenters and other big box stores which make it more difficult for them to reach shoppers who appreciate the smaller convenient stores. Along with this, they have been unable to change their business model to adapting times (Target Corporation SWOT Analysis, n.d.).
In addition to the other material, hackers were also able to retrieve names, birth dates and addresses. Credit card numbers for 209,000 consumers were stolen, while documents with personal information used in disputes for 182,000 people were also taken.
To prevent future attacks from happening again, Sony needs to take a more proactive approach. The company should utilize the Advanced Persistent Threat(APT)frameworkas the hacktivists most likely used APTto get into Sony’s systems. Sony had been hacked before by Anonymous and should have known it was a target for these hacktivists. It should also reorganizeits organizational structure so that there is more sharing in cybersecurity. In addition, employees need to be trained better so that they don’t fall for social engineering techniques.
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.
Having first appeared in Russia in 2005, referred as Winlock, that successfully scammed over £10m from unsuspecting victims before the Russian authorities arrested 10 individuals for involvement in such hackings in 2010, however it hasn’t stop the growing number of the problem. With such profitable money to obtain, perpetrators have discovered new ways to spread the malware and to cash-in at the expense of victims.
Thomas, Teka. "Cyber defense: Who 's in charge?" National Defense July 2015: 21+. War and Terrorism Collection. Web. 28 Oct.
As the Department of Homeland Security continues to improve cyber security across all critical information sectors as well as in cyber infrastructure and network they are not effective. This lack of effectiveness comes from the overwhelming work load that is being put on one department which can cause one purpose to fail more than another and as a result the purpose fails as a