Repost:Booking.com reservation data used to scam customers

This is a very well documented article describing a scam that has been going on for years. This is worth your time if you use this service. Read more...

A day after watching the Super Bowl ads I noticed Booking.com paid for a Super Bowl Ad so this all of a sudden becomes a little more important to consider.

Are you handling Credit Card Payments? Let us help you become PCI compliant!

While we are all working towards making our businesses run as smoothly and safely as possible, one of things you may have overlooked is making sure you client’s financial information is as safe and secure as possible.

Credit Card information is a critical piece of information that you need to be aware of protecting. It is not hard to do so but you need to put the right protection in place to help you do this.

We find many small businesses still using simple home routers or just your Internet Provider’s modem for your connection to the Internet. That is just not the right piece of equipment to do this. You need to call one of our security experts to provide suggestions on how you can easily create a secure environment for your business.

We suggest Sophos Security products primarily to do this for you. The first line of defense is to put in place a business class firewall that will provide the following protection:

• ·         Intrusion Protection for those trying to break into your network and detection of outbound traffic that needs to be secure and managed
• ·         Control address, port, protocol and specific application traffic and behavior patterns.
• ·         Perform NAT (Network Address Translation)
• ·         Detect and block spoofed IP Addresses
• ·         Inspect data traffic for malicious activities

While this is a good first step in creating a protected environment, it is not the only one you need.

Again, contact one of our security specialists that can provide you with a complete analysis and recommendation for your business.

Card fraud now hits nearly one third of consumers worldwide

Naked Security reports:  Card fraud now hits nearly one third of consumers worldwide

Imagine folded, chopped, and mutilated plastic up to the sky: that’s the pile being generated by cardholder fraud these days.

I’ll let ACI Worldwide and Aite Group quantify the pile just a bit:

Of all cardholders – debit, credit, and prepaid – 30% have experienced card fraud in the past five years.

That’s the #1 takeaway from their latest biennial survey of cardholders in 20 countries worldwide.

If that topline figure isn’t bad enough, 17% of debit and credit card holders say they’ve fallen victim multiple times over that period – up from 13% in the 2014 survey.

Many of the costs to individuals and institutions are pretty obvious: reimbursements of fraudulent transactions, potentially damaged credit ratings, card replacement and security costs. Unsurprisingly, card fraud also contributes to costly customer churn: worldwide, one-fifth of consumers “changed financial institutions due to dissatisfaction after experiencing fraud.”

But, as the survey’s authors note, financial institutions face an additional cost that might not be obvious to the casual observer: worldwide, 40% of consumers use the compromised account less frequently after the fraud.

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Article Healthcare InfoSecurity questions why we are so stupid!

These tricksters are getting better and better at finding ways to bilk us out of our hard earned cash. Here is an article posted at HealthcareInfoSecurity Blog that asks: Why Are We So Stupid About Security?

And we really are at times, letting our greed and hopes for easy or quick returns to egg us on. The new FBI Alert states that businesses have lost over $2.3 billion in the last 2.5 years. The article above gives some examples of what to look for and some of the security that you need to consider with your transactioins.