The
Open Security Foundation reports 272 data breaches in the U.S. this year totaling 30.9 million records. There were five breaches of over one million records and three of them were at financial institutions.
This frauds affects everybody in the industry. The more cards details are out there, the harder is for a payment gateway or e-merchants to prevent frauds. Is getting harder and harder every year and that is not normal.
Now, based on
Merchant911 (Fraud Prevention for Merchants), here are the Top Fraud Incidents in 2008:
Bank of New York Mellon and Archive Systems, Inc.
An unencrypted backup tape with 12.5 million customers of the Bank of New York Mellon went missing on Feb. 27, after it was sent to a storage facility. The missing tape contains social security numbers and bank account information on 12.5 million customers. You would think that financial institutions would be more careful.
Hannaford Data Breach
In March, the Maine-based Hannaford Brothers grocery store chain announced that 4.2 million customer card transactions had been compromised by the hackers. This one was more interesting for two reasons. Over 1800 cards were used soon after the breach; we don’t see that often. Even more telling is that Hannaford appears to have been PCI compliant.
Countrywide Home Loans
2.2 million social security numbers and other ‘identity theft’ information stolen by an employee. Financial institutions need to screen employees and be ever-vigilant for signs of internal fraud.
Compass Bank
One million social security numbers stolen when a hard drive is stolen. Another inside job at a financial institution that makes us wonder just how safe out information really is.
GE Money and Iron Mountain
650,000 people were affected by the loss of a backup tape containing customer data of JC Penney and 100 other retailers. At least 150,000 social security numbers were also on the tapes. Here we have a credit card processor and a data security company loosing data. How bad is that!
