Weaknesses Of Choicepoint Information Security Management Practices

Identify at least 3-5 potential information security risks that the lab may be exposed to and propose counter measures for addressing those risks. Identify security technology and products that could be used to protect the lab environment from these risks. Use

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 2014, Target

* Discuss three (3) security concerns of corporations in the U.S. Next, analyze the overall manner in which you would use security analysis to identify levels of concern and propose one (1) strategy to mitigate the concerns in question. Provide a rationale to support your response.

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.

This case study, written in 2009 is not the only case where a major data breach has occurred within organizations. In the late 2011 Sony’s PlayStation Network (PSN) was breached impacting up to 77 million user’s accounts including data on names, address and possibly credit card details. In late 2013 Target had a cyber-attack that compromised a large quantity of its data and had 110 million accounts compromised. Finally in September 2014 Apple had their iCloud server breached by hacking that compromised all the users of the online server. These occurrences still have some unanswered questions and several experts have yet to decipher the actual reason as to why the security breach occurred.

Target’s response to the breach was not appropriate and they did not handle the whole situation with integrity. From not being forthcoming when the breach

The information was stolen by hackers who broke into the keypads in front of registers where customers swipe their credit cards and enter their personal identification numbers (PIN). The company acknowledged the security breach, and announced as a precaution, customers who used their cards at any of the sixty-three Barnes & Noble where information was

* Discuss three (3) security concerns of corporations in the U.S. Next, analyze the overall manner in which you would use security analysis to identify levels of concern and propose one (1) strategy to mitigate the concerns in question. Provide a rationale to support your response.

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.

2 Since the security is weak it can cause problems if the sensitive data is leaked out of the company in any way.

The first weakness on ChoicePoint was on the "credentialing process" which they used to ensure if their clients were legitimate or not. Even though they had all these precautions of using several steps to verify the authenticity of their potential customers who are looking for specific data, some fraudsters found ways to access successfully into their information and hacked the authentication process that they were used. One of the ways that identity thieves used to thwart ChoicePoint 's credentialing process was by using fake documents to prove that their fake businesses existed, and then they got an access to ChoicePoint 's databases.

Using my management perspective, I believe Target made one mistake. Jeffrey Jones did not wont the breach of the consumers information to be disclosed to the public. Jones was afraid about the uncertainty of the level of fraud danger the breach posed. On the other hand Me. Steinhafel was ashamed of the hostile disclosure by some of the top executives. Mr. Steinhafel stated, “ Target won't be defined by the breach, but how we handle the breach” (Steinhafel). He used effective management skills, by doing what was right by the consumers. Steinhafel was willing to spend an enormous amount of money to gain the trust of the consumers back. He recommended, to give free credit monitoring and identity-theft insurance for one year to all of the consumers.

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