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Security is defined in three main areas: confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Each definition takes a corner of a triangle, which is supposed to emulate a perfect security design called the CIA triad. I will refer to these elements in the recent Target breach.

Target had a catastrophic security breach in December that involved 40 million credit cards, CVV numbers, and customer information (Greenberg, 2013A). Several weeks later the number of stolen credit cards rose to 70 million and now personal information was stolen (Greenberg, 2014B). The story is unfolding as the forensics team starts to piece parts together; unfortunately, they found a larger security breach than what was reported. Last week, the number of credit cards increased to an estimated 110 million (Popken, 2014). Forensics takes a long time to analyze and the timeline could be weeks or it could be months to know the exact details of what happened. I know this is supposed to be a fact based report, but not a lot of information has been disclosed to the public except for the quantity of credit cards, the type of information, and the main cause. The main cause is what we want to focus on, so let’s go into the specifics.
Malware could be defined as several different objects such as worms, viruses, Trojans, or blended, so I’m going to compare malware to a car manufacturer. There are countless models that a car manufacturer makes, so it would be difficult to distinctly describe, Ford as solely a truck or sedan company. We know manufactures make several types of different vehicles. Let’s get back to malware and let me give you an example.
Example of a malware
In 2009, the Conflicker worm was a devastating worm that replicated to 9 mi...

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...est and data-in-motion are encrypted throughout the credit card process.
Next Steps
Information Technology is performing a risk assessment on security related areas including physical access, network security, credit card controls, franchise security, end-point security, and several other areas. This risk assessment will show us our strengths/weaknesses and provide an overview of what Buffalo Wild Wings needs to work on. Information Technology in conjunction with other department leaders will provide guidance on our business goals and priorities. One security breach could cripple our future, our customers, and our brand. No one wants to see our tremendous growth get shattered by overlooking simple fixes and common vulnerabilities. A team effort and a focused organization can make our organization strive for decades. Let’s not be the next Target.