A Brief Note On Companies And The Largest Ever Consumer Data Breach

LIABILITY/RESPONSIBILITY: One of the key issues is who should be held liable for the breaches? With so many parties involved in the credit card payment process, it’s difficult to define a certain group solely responsible.

Remote access must be strictly controlled. Remote access allows authorized users to access network resources as if they were at the physical location of the company network. These connections may be made over the phone lines by directly dialing into a remote access server on the network, or they may be made by virtual private networking (VPN).The VPN server will support Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) tunneling with Internet Protocol Security (IPSec) encryption. Dial-in remote access uses modems, servers running the Routing and Remote Access (RRAS) service, and the Point-to-Point (PPP) protocol to enable remote users to access the network.

Risk assessment and threat assessment should go hand-in-hand.The outcome of the risk assessment and threat assessment should provide recommendations that maximize the protection of confidentiality, integrity and availability while still providing functionality and usability. The purpose of a risk assessment is to ensure sensitive data and valuable assets are protected. An organization should take a hard look at who has access to sensitive data and if those accesses are required. The security audit should monitor the companies systems and users to detect illicit activity.The security audit should

Each company may have different kind of sensitive information, for example for a bank both credit card numbers and marketing strategy may be considered as a compromising data; therefore there must be a clear policy governing who has access to different type of sensitive information, a bank officer serving a customer may have access to credit card numbers while marketing specialist reviewing promotion strategy of the bank may be able to access marketing data.

This paper explores seven references that report the results from research conducted on-line regarding the 2013 Target breach. According to the website “Timeline of Target 's Data Breach And Aftermath: How Cybertheft Snowballed For The Giant Retailer” (2015), the breach occurred November and December 2013 in which customers who shopped at Target locations credit and debit cards were breached and their personal information was exposed. Upon their investigation, it was determined their point of sale system was hacked. “Wikipedia” states point of sale system which is used by third party vendors has cash registers as well as barcodes which stores customer’s information. The website “What is Packet Sniffer” (2016), Packet Sniffing may have been a way the attacked happened. “RAM Scraping Attack” website indicates what RAM means and how this type of attack happens. “What is a Firewall in Networking and How They Protect Your Computers” (2014), “What is Endpoint Security? Data Protection 101” and “Why SSL? The Purpose of using SSL Certificates” websites each provide ways to reduce and/or prevent future attacks.

This paper explores seven references that report the results from research conducted on-line regarding the 2013 Target breach. According to the website “Timeline of Target 's Data Breach And Aftermath: How Cybertheft Snowballed For The Giant Retailer” (2015), the breach occurred November and December 2013 in which customers who shopped at Target locations credit and debit cards were breached and their personal information was exposed. Upon their investigation, it was determined their point of sale system was hacked. “Wikipedia” states point of sale system which is used by third party vendors has cash registers as well as barcodes which stores customer’s information. The website “What is Packet Sniffer” (2016), Packet Sniffing may have been a way the attacked happened. “RAM Scraping Attack” website indicates what RAM means and how this type of attack happens. “What is a Firewall in Networking and How They Protect Your Computers” (2014), “What is Endpoint Security? Data Protection 101” and “Why SSL? The Purpose of using SSL Certificates” websites each provide ways to reduce and/or prevent future attacks.

The 9-Iron Country Club is trying to implement a remote access program for their employees to access their work from home. The 9-Iron Country Club provides services for more than 1,200 members and employs around 75 staff. During the winter months, outdoor operations are ceased and preparation for the upcoming seasons begins. The addition of a remote access option will give the staff the ability to securely work from home and provide continued support. The 9-Iron Country Club has hired an information consultant to prepare the network and provide recommendations for the remote access solution. The purposed solution is using Terminal Access Controller Access-Control System Plus (TACACS+) to provide a secure remote connection for all employees. This report will review TACACS+ implementation, risk involved, and data classification.

Three different areas of vulnerabilities was identify as the result of this data breach. The hackers where able to take advantage of these vulnerabilities and use them gain the customers of TJX Companies, Inc. retail stores valuable and trusted private information that was in trust to them.

Restricting access to sensitive information plays a vital role in the success of any organization. Information is deemed sensitive when it needs protection from unauthorized access. Protecting this information is essential in safeguarding security and privacy of an organization. Thus, an organization such as Bank of America has taken measures geared towards protecting its sensitive information from unauthorized access. Just like other organizations, Bank of America has two types of sensitive information. The first type of sensitive information is personal information. This is data that may affect an individual if

Target inappropriately handled this crisis because the company waited to report the data breach until days after it initially learned about it, which gave the public the impression that Target was being dishonest. On December 15th, 2013 Target initially learned of the breach in security, and on December 19th Target confirmed the data breach to the public. In Target’s initial statement, it claimed “There is no indication that PIN numbers have been compromised on affected bank issued PIN debit cards or Target debit cards” (Steinhafel, 2013). On December 27th, Target retracted its statement, and stated, “our ongoing investigation determined that strongly encrypted PIN data was removed from our system during the data breach incident” (Target,

What allowed the breach into JPMorgan Chase & Co. was a very mundane and basic method by comparison. Using Social Engineering, hackers managed to acquire the login credentials for a JPMorgan employee.

While all of these technologies have enabled exciting changes and opportunities for businesses, they have also created a unique set of challenges for business managers. Chief among all concerns about technology is the issue of information security. It seems to be almost a weekly occurrence to see a news article about yet another breach of security and loss of sensitive data. Many people will remember high profile data breaches from companies such as T.J Maxx, Boston Market, Sports Authority, and OfficeMax. In the case of T.J. Maxx, a data breach resulted in the loss of more than 45 million credit and debit card numbers. In many of these incidents, the root cause is a lack of adequate security practices within the company. The same technologies that enable managers can also be used against them. Because of this, businesses must take appropriate steps to ensure their data remains secure and their communications remain

Confidentiality must be met in the storage, processing, and transmission of data in an organization. For example, we are going to look at a major recent data breach. On March 8, 2017, the US department of homeland security sent Equifax and notice to patch a vulnerability in versions of the Apache Struts software. On March 9, Equifax dispersed the information to applicable personnel. Although told to apply the patch, Equifax security team did not find

Technology: it is obvious that TJX had several technology deficiencies mainly driven by systems limitations and vulnerability. For example, inadequate wireless network security allowed the hackers to attack specific stores just by using a laptop and an antenna which permitted the thieves access to the central database. As it was mentioned in the business case, TJX was using (WEP) as the security protocol and it is

The control that failed to mitigate the risk event was using WEP encryption technology. It was sufficient when it was developed, but approximately 2 years later the code was cracked. TJX knew and failed to address the obsolete technology. As a retailer that accepts credit cards, it was later proved that TJX was not compliant with PCI Security standards. PCI stands for payment card industry and credit card companies have developed this list of security measures to help protect against theft.