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Target Breach: 10 Facts
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rradina
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rradina,
 User Rank: Apprentice
12/23/2013 | 6:48:16 PM
Re: Lets Try Some Facts.....
Why does the time period imply theft at time of purchase?  If I was designing a POS/cash management system that required time to clear transactions, balance accounts and reverse returns, I'd keep recent transactions for some time period and then purge them. There is also the data warehouse side of things. Sometimes mapping and cleansing routines are updated resulting in numbers that don't balance. Often data gets reloaded to correct such issues.  It's plausible that this could have been an inside job where someone copied a temporal 30-day tlog database to a thumb drive and walked out the door.

Of course all of these activities rarely require the full account info.  Generally PCI requires truncation to store transactions but Target may have demonstrated a mitigating factor by encrypting all transactions.  Thats why its probably an inside job... someone with access to the necessary decryption information.

Another article I read said the cvv codes were not stolen which meant the stolen accounts are not useful for most on-line purchases.

IMO ... regrdless of this article's title, we don't really know what happened yet.
cjoshdoll
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cjoshdoll,
 User Rank: Apprentice
12/23/2013 | 3:40:05 PM
Lets Try Some Facts.....
First:

"..."The fact that three-digit CVV security codes were compromised shows they were being stored..."

I'm not sure why data storage is even mentioned in the story, much less the encryption piece.  The fact that the breech is limited to a 3-4 week window of time would clearly indicate that the card data was stolen at the time of purchase, NOT stolen from a database. Thus, lodging the claim that Target was doing a "no-no" by storing ccv data, is just slander, IMO.  If this data was stolen from a database, where Target was saving CC data that they should not be saving, then A) there wouldn't be such a short window of time (you don't compromise a window of records in a database, it's all or nothing) and B) its highly likely that target.com's CC data would have been compromised too.

 

Secondly, the throwing the encryption for data in transit subject in with the encryption for data at rest issue is poor timing.  PCI requirements for encryption are different for data at rest and data in motion, and CC data is NOT required to be encrypted, according to the PCI DSS, unless it is traveling over a public network (the internet) or over wireless networks.  In fact, most banks / acquirers can't even support end-to-end encryption for CC transactions.  There are a very limited number of acquirers that can support E2E encryption, and most of those are new niche businesses that are providing a new model for transaction encryption.

 

While it's easy for these "experts" to sit back and say how everything should be encrypted and secured tight as can be, its careless to make accusations that Target wasn't doing everything that they could to prevent this.  We are talking about a system for credit processing that pre-dates the internet, and the everything is connected world.  Businesses are trying to play catchup to secure these systems while leveraging new technology to make their supply chain more efficient and reduce costs with tech.

 

I have NO ties to Target, and I am not here to defend them.  I am however the lead Security Architect for a mid-size, national retailer, in charge of PCI compliance and CC transaction security, so I have personal experience living up to the PCI DSS, and trying to balance business requirements with customer protection.  I have no issue burning them at the stake if they are to blame, but let's get the FACTS before we indict Target.  There are PLENTY of scenarios where Target could have been doing EVERYTHING right, and still have this happen.

 

My $0.02
MelvinGaines
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MelvinGaines,
 User Rank: Apprentice
12/23/2013 | 12:37:56 PM
Re: When?
I think we may need to consider that this was an exceptional breach that likely occurred internally. I think it is entirely plausible that the information was not leaked immediately so as to not tip off whoever was causing the internal breach to take place. I don't ever recall the Secret Service being involved with previous credit card breaches (to my knowledge).  In my mind, whether the public knew about it within 4 days or 7 days doesn't really matter that much if you look at the overall number of 40 million. Only a small fraction of that number will be affected.
SaneIT
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50%
SaneIT,
 User Rank: Apprentice
12/23/2013 | 7:50:30 AM
Re: Kudos? Target was outed by a journalist
This is one of the things that bothers me most.  Target didn't come out and notify customers to protect them, they kept quiet as long as they could and it sounds like the "fix" for this is a knee-jerk reaction by the banks who issued the cards.  If the tren of punishing customers after a data breech continues we're going to see a lot more people protecting themselves by avoiding companies who have had data losses in the past.
samicksha
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100%
samicksha,
 User Rank: Apprentice
12/23/2013 | 2:41:36 AM
Re: Kudos? Target was outed by a journalist
I am not shocked and neither surprised but yes, was it so easy for hackers to attack, i mean 40 million accounts is not a small number. We have been discussing and claiming about more rigid and bulletproof security but still hacker manages to find good loop holes. I am not sure but i read CVV number was also stolen which ideally should be available only with user physically on the card.
Chris1001
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Chris1001,
 User Rank: Apprentice
12/23/2013 | 1:47:47 AM
Kudos? Target was outed by a journalist
The breach was reported to the public by Journalist Brian Krebs.  Target was outed.  They did not "come clean" of their own accord.
Banker666
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Banker666,
 User Rank: Apprentice
12/22/2013 | 9:37:02 PM
Millions of dollars
I work at a bank that does card processing and I for one can say PCI is a joke in my opinion.   After being audited they made us move all of the card processing off onto it's own seperate mainframe systems.  They were totally clueless about how a mainframe works and how it processes.  As a result our company spent millions of dollars to meet their compliance.   In my opinion the vast majority of breeches occur on the retail side.   For example I walk into a store and use my card and the clerk doesn't ask for any ID from me.   How about making these retailers make their employees go thru a fingerprint and background check like we had to where I work at.  I wonder if Target was using offshore IT services.  Duh let me guess.   The discussion where I work has been how many cards are we going to have to re-issue because of this and not to mention all of the account forwarding processing we'll likely have to do.  The bigger issue is that who ever pulled this off won't be jailed, much less captured and brought to justice and they likely know it too.    If I pulled off something like this in the U.S. I'd be put into prison.   I know one thing for sure we'll be re-evaluating offshore access and their use.  Maybe even put them all out the door.   Gawd I could not imagine our reputation ruined because of a major breech like this.          
PaulS681
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100%
PaulS681,
 User Rank: Apprentice
12/22/2013 | 12:04:05 PM
Re: When?
I aree you have to be 100% positive but if they were on the 15th then why didn't we hear about it? I think if target came out and said why they waited it might help a little. Although this is the least of Targets problems as class action lawsuits are popping up all over the place due to the fact they were breached.
Brian.Dean
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50%
Brian.Dean,
 User Rank: Apprentice
12/22/2013 | 6:28:54 AM
Transitions are Important
Banking has come a long way since pre internet times but as people continue to use electronic forms to make payments the need to increase the security standard increases while at the same time complexity needs to be kept to a minimum.

Almost all developing countries have a banking sector but not all of its population are banked, the reason for this are many, and one reason is that the population view banks as being too complex, another is a view that banks are not as secure as they should be. 40 million is a large number, before never forms of payment become discredited, I think it is vital to add security and limit complexity before it starts to affect the number of transitions carried out. 
Brian.Dean
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Brian.Dean,
 User Rank: Apprentice
12/22/2013 | 5:41:35 AM
Re: When?
I hear you and understand that the need to quickly disclose any kind of data breach is a matter of extreme importance for the protection of customers likewise, it is also important to confirm and be 100% sure that a data breach has taken place before releasing an alert, because false positives would not only cause unnecessary panic for the customer but it will also undermine the legitimacy of future alerts.
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