Cyber Crimes Reflected Through Television Programs

As technology is used worldwide, it is in no way hard to get your hands on, or learn how to use computers etc. One of the most significant problems with cybercrime is it’s secretive nature; many protection devices which can be cracked will not pick up that they have been, therefore the majority of cybercrime will go unnoticed for a substantial amount of time. Combined with the world wide web, hackers can use the computers to gain information from any organisation around the world, penetrating even the most impenetrable organisations to get what they want, highlighting how technology has led to the process of globalization within the criminal world.

In December of 2013, target corporation faced a serious security breach where over 40 million credit cards were stolen from different target stores. This paper is going to explore the problem, the background information about the problem, the controls that could have been in place to prevent the issue, the intended plan of control and the associated risks involved.

On December 18, 2013, one of the security bloggers, Brian Krebs, posted in his blog that Target, one of the biggest US retailers, had suffered a massive data breach. The next day, Target announced that data from more than 40 million credit and debit card accounts had been stolen from its systems, and noting that they started a thorough investigation. Perhaps learning from Target’s mistakes, other organizations could achieve a goal of better protecting themselves and their customers’ information.

During the dates of November 27 through December 2013, the department store Target experienced a data breach in which approximately 40 million customers credit and debit cards were exposed. During this breach, customer’s personal information may have also been exposed for use of possible fraud. January

The Target Corporation was exploited in December 2013 and then again in 2015. These breaches included customer’s personal identifying information and retailer’s data. This credit card data breach is a prime example of weak security and infrastructure. This breach happened over the course of one of the United States’ major holiday seasons, Christmas. The security issue involved hackers accessing Target’s customer 's credit and debit cards by the machines that were being used to swipe the cards. These hackers accessed Target’s network with a stolen username and password from a company that was providing refrigeration and HVAC services. This company could access Target’s network `remotely to monitor energy consumption and temperatures. With that, the hackers uploaded malware software on the Target’s credit card machines. The customer data hack happened across the nation, and it was performed in stores and not an online breach of Target customer information.

On Dec 19, 2013 Target Corporation announced to the world that they had suffered a major data security breach. Due to Target Corporations poor stance on network security, hackers were able to steal over 40 million payment card records, encrypted PINs and 70 million customer records during the Black Friday sales week. Initial reports indicated that it was malware placed on their Point of Sales (POS) system, but that was just the tip of the iceberg of the breach. If there had been better security from the start this breach could have been avoided or greatly reduced.

From November 27 to December 15, 2013 Target Corporation released 70 million customers’ personal information. On average, it takes companies 200 days to uncover they are being hacked (Lunden, 2015). It only took Target 12 days to figure out the crisis that began happening. On December 19, Target originally said only 40 million credit and debit card accounts may have been compromised during Black Friday weekend to December 15. “The information stolen included customer names, credit or debit card number, and the card’s expiration date and CVV” (McGrath, 2014). Although Target never clarified how they were hacked, security experts say that hackers targeted their POS system. “Target spent $61 million through Feb. 1 responding to the breach, according

In the middle of the holiday season, Target shoppers were knocked off their feet with the news that in December 2013 that 40 million Target credit card numbers had been stolen (Krebs, 2013f) by someone accessing Target’s data on their point of sale (POS) systems (Krebs, 2014b). To make matters worst Target later revised their number to include the private data for 70 million of their customers (Target, 2014). The breach took place period of November 27 through December 15th 2013 (Clark, 2014). Target had gotten taken for over 11 GB of their data that had been stolen (Poulin, 2014). Target did not catch their internal alerts and was informed about the breach when they were contacted by the Department of Justice (Riley, Elgin,

Target Corporation acknowledged a breach in their systems just as the 2013 holiday season was in full swing. The hacker have taken the information of nearly 40 million credit and debit cards from shoppers who shopped in its stores over the initial three weeks of the holiday season. This is the second biggest penetration of its kind announced by a United States retailer, of which Target is the third largest retailer. Apparently, the hackers worked quite speedily with the operation lasting from the day before Thanksgiving to Sunday December 15, 2013. These nineteen days are part of the large kickoff to the Christmas sales season. Target is said to be working with federal law enforcement and other experts to avert comparable future attacks. The company has not and does not seem to have an intention of revealing exactly how the system was compromised. It is known, however, that the company did not find the attack alone.

The Target data breach remains one of the most notable breaches in history, it was the first time a CEO of a major corporation was fired due to a security event. The breach received an enormous amount of attention, it caused corporations and individuals to change the way they think about information security and data protection. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas 2013 hackers gained access to 40 million customer credit cards and personal data of 70 million Target customers. The intruders slipped in by using stolen credentials and from there gained access to vulnerable servers on Targets network to launch their attack and steal sensitive customer data from the POS cash registers. All this occurred without a response from Targets security operations center, even though security systems notified them of suspicious activity. The data was then sold on the black market for an estimated $53 million dollars. However, the cost to Target, creditors, and banks exceeded half of a billion dollars. This report will review how the infiltration occurred, what allowed the breach to occur including Targets response, and finally who was impacted by the security event.

In the midst of the holiday season, Target shoppers were shocked in December 2013 when the news came out, 40 million Target credit cards had been stolen (Krebs, 2013f) by accessing data on point of sale (POS) systems (Krebs, 2014b). Target later revised that number to include private data for 70 million customers (Target, 2014). The breach transpired between November 27 and December 15th 2014 (Clark, 2014). Over 11 GB of data was stolen (Poulin, 2014). Target missed internal alerts and found out about the breach when they were contacted by the Department of Justice (Riley, Elgin, Lawrence & Matlack, 2014).

In December 2013, Target announced that massive amounts of credit and debit card information they collected over the years might be in the danger of theft. The credit card breach could affect as many as 70 million customers who swept cards in the retail stores or linked their cards with the membership card, the RedCard. Each card information contains a card number, holder’s name, address, phone number and etc. The more information the thieves got, the more conveniently the thieves could use them to get benefits from the card holders. Jia Lynn Yang and Amrita Jayakumar, the authors of “Target says up to 70 million more customers were hit by December data breach”, write about how bad people will use customers’ information to crime. These thieves possibly shop online by inserting the card information. They could also contact with the victims to gather more sensitive information, and even hack into their computers. This event forces us to seriously consider the crisis in how retails protect customers’ data (Yang &

In December 2013, Target was attacked by a cyber-attack due to a data breach. Target is a widely known retailer that has millions of consumers flocking every day to the retailer to partake in the stores wonders. The Target Data Breach is now known as the largest data breach/attack surpassing the TJX data breach in 2007. “The second-biggest attack struck TJX Companies, the parent company of TJMaxx and Marshall’s, which said in 2007 that about 45 million credit cards and debit cards had been compromised.” (Timberg, Yang, & Tsukayama, 2013) The data breach occurred to Target was a strong swift kick to the guts to not only the retailer/corporation, but to employees and consumers. The December 2013 data breach, exposed Target in a way that many

Last year, The US retailer, Target, reported that there were almost forty million transaction information been stolen by hacker. Those information include card numbers, name, expired date and security code, and the information can be used for making counterfeits. The theft seriously damaged Target’s reputation and shareholders' equity. According to the CNN news, Target might loss $148 million in this accident.

The creation go of the Internet has helped spawn new forms of criminals and crimes, and has always helped make older criminal schemes easier to execute, identity theft, child pornography, copyright violations, hacking and you could go on and on. In a 2003 survey conducted by the CSI with the participation of the San Francisco Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Computer Intrusion Squad, of the 530 respondents made up of U.S. corporations, government agencies, financial institutions, medical institutions and universities, 56% reported unauthorized use of their computer systems (2003 CSI/FBI Computer Crime and Security Survey).