WHY DO DATA BREACHES HAPPEN? Clues from the Verizon DBIR 2014...

The always eagerly awaited Verizon DBIR 2014 was released earlier this year. As always, with a nice cup of coffee and some smooth jazz playing in the background, I will endeavour to distil the essence of this always excellent publication... Well, this year, the DBIR departs from just analysing data breaches to looking at 63,347 confirmed security incidents, of which 1,367 were confirmed data breaches (compared to 621 for 2012) across 95 countries (compared to 27 in 2012). This gives far greater richness to the data set and the insights that can be derived from it (rightly so, the DBIR team notes that incidents need not necessarily result on data loss to have a significant impact on an organisation – I couldn’t agree more!). Also don’t miss the month by month review of the major incidents of 2013 on pages 3 & 4, that’ll get you in the mood...

DON'T BE A TARGET... ON RETAIL POS, BANKS, EMV & WINDOWS XP...

McAfee Labs' latest report reveals that hackers are using basic 'off the shelf' malware to target retail POS systems, a very topical subject, I’m sure you will agree... But we have to remember that the breaches mentioned in the McAfee report took place in the US, and there is one notable difference between retailers there and those in Europe: the US haven’t yet adopted EMV (aka Chip & PIN)...

UK CARDS ASSOCIATION 2012 REPORT - WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW...

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The UK Cards Association has just published its always eagerly awaited and oft quoted annual report for 2012 (http://www.buzzwordcreative.co.uk/UK-Cards-Annual-Report-2012/html/index.html#/1/) and I am pleased to see that the fraud trend is still on the decline, despite the staggering numbers:

• At the end of 2010 there were 84.6 million debit cards; 55.6 million credit cards, 6.6 million charge cards and up to an estimated 3.0 million prepaid cards in issue in the UK.
• Payment cards have become an integral and indispensable part of the UK economy accounting for over 8 billion purchases worth £428 billion in 2010, and accepted at almost 1 million retail outlets in the UK alone.
• During 2010, 37 million adults shopped over the internet with plastic cards accounting for over 80% of spending, 717 million card payments and £54 billion worth of goods and services.