Target says 40 million cards likely skimmed in security breach

<p style="line-height:1.7em;margin:0px 0px 0.7em;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif">Target has confirmed that data from about 40 million credit and debit cards was stolen at its stores between Nov. 27 and Dec. 15.</p> <p style="line-height:1.7em;margin:0px 0px 0.7em;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif">The statement from the retailer Thursday follows <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/2081860/target-customers-card-data-said-to-be-at-risk-after-store-thefts.html" style="color:rgb(37,167,215)" target="_blank">reports</a> that thieves had accessed data stored on the magnetic stripe on the back of credit and debit cards during the Black Friday weekend through card swiping machines that could have been tampered with at the retailer's stores, a practice known as card skimming.</p> <p style="line-height:1.7em;margin:0px 0px 0.7em;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif">The data could have been used to create counterfeit cards that could even be used to withdraw money at an ATM, according to the reports.</p> <p style="line-height:1.7em;margin:0px 0px 0.7em;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif">The card information that may have been compromised includes the name of the customer, credit or debit card number, the cards expiration date and the three-digit CVV security code, Target said in a note to customers. Shoppers at its online store Target.com or at physical stores outside the U.S were not affected, it added.</p> <p style="line-height:1.7em;margin:0px 0px 0.7em;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif">Target said it "is working closely with law enforcement and financial institutions, and has identified and resolved the issue." It also said it was working with an outside forensics firm.</p> <p style="line-height:1.7em;margin:0px 0px 0.7em;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif">Customers who suspect unauthorized activity should contact the company, Target said.</p><p style="line-height:1.7em;margin:0px 0px 0.7em;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif"> Security news writer Brian Krebs<a href="http://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/12/sources-target-investigating-data-breach/#more-24054" style="color:rgb(37,167,215)" target="_blank">reported Wednesday</a> that it was first thought that the breach extended from just after Thanksgiving 2013 to Dec. 6. But investigators found evidence that the breach may have lasted up to Dec. 15, which has now been confirmed by Target.</p> <p style="line-height:1.7em;margin:0px 0px 0.7em;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif">Millions of cardholder accounts may have been vulnerable after the breach that is believed to have affected about 40,000 card machines at store registers, The Wall Street Journal said, quoting people familiar with the situation. Sources at two of the top 10 card issuers told Krebs that the breach had affected nearly all Target locations in the U.S.</p>

Target says 40 million cards likely skimmed in security breach

Target has confirmed that data from about 40 million credit and debit cards was stolen at its stores between Nov. 27 and Dec. 15. The st...

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Target says 40 million cards likely skimmed in security breach

<p style="line-height:1.7em;margin:0px 0px 0.7em;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif">Target has confirmed that data from about 40 million credit and debit cards was stolen at its stores between Nov. 27 and Dec. 15.</p> <p style="line-height:1.7em;margin:0px 0px 0.7em;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif">The statement from the retailer Thursday follows <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/2081860/target-customers-card-data-said-to-be-at-risk-after-store-thefts.html" style="color:rgb(37,167,215)" target="_blank">reports</a> that thieves had accessed data stored on the magnetic stripe on the back of credit and debit cards during the Black Friday weekend through card swiping machines that could have been tampered with at the retailer's stores, a practice known as card skimming.</p> <p style="line-height:1.7em;margin:0px 0px 0.7em;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif">The data could have been used to create counterfeit cards that could even be used to withdraw money at an ATM, according to the reports.</p> <p style="line-height:1.7em;margin:0px 0px 0.7em;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif">The card information that may have been compromised includes the name of the customer, credit or debit card number, the cards expiration date and the three-digit CVV security code, Target said in a note to customers. Shoppers at its online store Target.com or at physical stores outside the U.S were not affected, it added.</p> <p style="line-height:1.7em;margin:0px 0px 0.7em;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif">Target said it "is working closely with law enforcement and financial institutions, and has identified and resolved the issue." It also said it was working with an outside forensics firm.</p> <p style="line-height:1.7em;margin:0px 0px 0.7em;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif">Customers who suspect unauthorized activity should contact the company, Target said.</p><p style="line-height:1.7em;margin:0px 0px 0.7em;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif"> Security news writer Brian Krebs<a href="http://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/12/sources-target-investigating-data-breach/#more-24054" style="color:rgb(37,167,215)" target="_blank">reported Wednesday</a> that it was first thought that the breach extended from just after Thanksgiving 2013 to Dec. 6. But investigators found evidence that the breach may have lasted up to Dec. 15, which has now been confirmed by Target.</p> <p style="line-height:1.7em;margin:0px 0px 0.7em;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif">Millions of cardholder accounts may have been vulnerable after the breach that is believed to have affected about 40,000 card machines at store registers, The Wall Street Journal said, quoting people familiar with the situation. Sources at two of the top 10 card issuers told Krebs that the breach had affected nearly all Target locations in the U.S.</p>

Target says 40 million cards likely skimmed in security breach

Target has confirmed that data from about 40 million credit and debit cards was stolen at its stores between Nov. 27 and Dec. 15. The st...

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Google feeds 'net giants India and China from data centers next door

Google Inc opened its first two data centers in Asia on Wednesday to cater to the world's fastest growing consumer technology markets, but the company has no plans to open one in China or India.<p>Choosing Taiwan and Singapore instead illustrates the problem that tech companies face in trying to feed data demand in the world's two most populous countries: With regulations in flux in India and cyberspace censorship in China, Google had to look next door.<p>Mobile data traffic in emerging Asia-Pacific countries will likely rise 68 percent in 2014, well ahead of the global growth rate of 48 percent and the fastest growing region in the world, according to Analysys Mason, a research consultancy. Tech companies normally try to keep data centers as close to the customer base as possible because distance hurts speed.<p>"While we've been busy building, the growth in Asia's Internet has been amazing. The number of Internet users in India doubled, from 100 million to 200 million. It took six years to achieve that milestone in the U.S.," Google's vice president of data centers, Joe Kava, said in a statement.<p>"And this growth probably won't slow for some time, since the majority of people that have yet to come online also happen to live in Asia," he said.<p>Kava said the cost of building the centers was one consideration for locating in Taiwan, but things like data privacy policies, a highly trained workforce and network infrastructure were equally important.<p>"It's no secret that the Taiwanese ecosystem for technology companies is outstanding," he told reporters. "Being close to the technology companies will give us opportunity to further some of our partnerships" in Taiwan.<p>The importance of a country's data policies was highlighted by the way Google opened its centers in Taiwan and Singapore and its decision to double spending in Taiwan to $600 million compared to $120 million in Singapore.<p>While Google brought out executives and media to celebrate its Taiwan opening on Wednesday, the Singapore launch received no such fanfare.<p>The company has expressed concern over a Singapore regulation announced in May that requires certain websites that regularly report on Singapore to be licensed, put up a S$50,000 ($40,000) performance bond and take down within 24 hours any content that authorities deemed objectionable.<p>Singaporean opinion news site Breakfast Network effectively shut down this week as a result, saying the "demand to register has created a wrinkle in our barely formed plans to become a sustainable and professional outfit".<p>Google also announced it abandoned plans to build a third data centre in Hong Kong, citing primarily a lack of land.<p>SERVING 2.5 BILLION<p>Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore are all popular with global tech companies because they boast well-established privacy laws, reliable power and fiber broadband infrastructure, and skilled workforces, all essential to operating data centers.<p>Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft Corp are also building data centers in Asia in Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo. But the real appeal is the giant number of Internet users in China and India.<p>Google left mainland China in 2010 after a cyber attack and Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt told the Wall Street Journal last month that the company is in no hurry to return.<p>"China's censorship regime has gotten significantly worse since we left so something would have to change before we come back," he said.<p>That left an opening for China's Baidu Inc to further dominate the search engine market with a 66 percent share this year, according to web analytical tool StatCounter, and another local rival, 360 Search, to emerge, grabbing 21 percent. Google's share dropped to 9 percent from 41 percent in 2009 before its exit China.<p>"The regulatory environment in China is designed in a way to nurture local service providers such as Alibaba, so it makes it harder for foreign companies to enter the market," tech researcher IDC analyst Leon Kao, who is based in Taipei, said.<p>"But adding service support in Asia such as Hong Kong still increases a company's flexibility. For example, Amazon is able to deliver goods in a much shorter time now if there's a sudden surge in orders."<p>In India, Google dominates 97 percent share of the search engine market, data from StatCounter showed.<p>"In India, the challenge is mostly the cost of infrastructure and the ability of building infrastructure", said RadhaKrishna Hiremane, Intel Corp's Asia-Pacific regional product marketing manager of data centre business, based in Singapore.<p>He said putting an India-focused data centre in Singapore may not cost more, but it could affect speed.<p>"What matters is latency. At the end of the day, if a service provider is able to provide acceptable latency for the end customers by serving from outside the region and there's no conflicting regulation such as data sovereignty, then there's not anything in the APEC countries we know would be an issue right now."<p>($1 = 1.2495 Singapore dollars)

Google feeds 'net giants India and China from data centers next door

Google Inc opened its first two data centers in Asia on Wednesday to cater to the world's fastest growing consumer technology markets, b...

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Google feeds 'net giants India and China from data centers next door

Google Inc opened its first two data centers in Asia on Wednesday to cater to the world's fastest growing consumer technology markets, but the company has no plans to open one in China or India.<p>Choosing Taiwan and Singapore instead illustrates the problem that tech companies face in trying to feed data demand in the world's two most populous countries: With regulations in flux in India and cyberspace censorship in China, Google had to look next door.<p>Mobile data traffic in emerging Asia-Pacific countries will likely rise 68 percent in 2014, well ahead of the global growth rate of 48 percent and the fastest growing region in the world, according to Analysys Mason, a research consultancy. Tech companies normally try to keep data centers as close to the customer base as possible because distance hurts speed.<p>"While we've been busy building, the growth in Asia's Internet has been amazing. The number of Internet users in India doubled, from 100 million to 200 million. It took six years to achieve that milestone in the U.S.," Google's vice president of data centers, Joe Kava, said in a statement.<p>"And this growth probably won't slow for some time, since the majority of people that have yet to come online also happen to live in Asia," he said.<p>Kava said the cost of building the centers was one consideration for locating in Taiwan, but things like data privacy policies, a highly trained workforce and network infrastructure were equally important.<p>"It's no secret that the Taiwanese ecosystem for technology companies is outstanding," he told reporters. "Being close to the technology companies will give us opportunity to further some of our partnerships" in Taiwan.<p>The importance of a country's data policies was highlighted by the way Google opened its centers in Taiwan and Singapore and its decision to double spending in Taiwan to $600 million compared to $120 million in Singapore.<p>While Google brought out executives and media to celebrate its Taiwan opening on Wednesday, the Singapore launch received no such fanfare.<p>The company has expressed concern over a Singapore regulation announced in May that requires certain websites that regularly report on Singapore to be licensed, put up a S$50,000 ($40,000) performance bond and take down within 24 hours any content that authorities deemed objectionable.<p>Singaporean opinion news site Breakfast Network effectively shut down this week as a result, saying the "demand to register has created a wrinkle in our barely formed plans to become a sustainable and professional outfit".<p>Google also announced it abandoned plans to build a third data centre in Hong Kong, citing primarily a lack of land.<p>SERVING 2.5 BILLION<p>Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore are all popular with global tech companies because they boast well-established privacy laws, reliable power and fiber broadband infrastructure, and skilled workforces, all essential to operating data centers.<p>Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft Corp are also building data centers in Asia in Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo. But the real appeal is the giant number of Internet users in China and India.<p>Google left mainland China in 2010 after a cyber attack and Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt told the Wall Street Journal last month that the company is in no hurry to return.<p>"China's censorship regime has gotten significantly worse since we left so something would have to change before we come back," he said.<p>That left an opening for China's Baidu Inc to further dominate the search engine market with a 66 percent share this year, according to web analytical tool StatCounter, and another local rival, 360 Search, to emerge, grabbing 21 percent. Google's share dropped to 9 percent from 41 percent in 2009 before its exit China.<p>"The regulatory environment in China is designed in a way to nurture local service providers such as Alibaba, so it makes it harder for foreign companies to enter the market," tech researcher IDC analyst Leon Kao, who is based in Taipei, said.<p>"But adding service support in Asia such as Hong Kong still increases a company's flexibility. For example, Amazon is able to deliver goods in a much shorter time now if there's a sudden surge in orders."<p>In India, Google dominates 97 percent share of the search engine market, data from StatCounter showed.<p>"In India, the challenge is mostly the cost of infrastructure and the ability of building infrastructure", said RadhaKrishna Hiremane, Intel Corp's Asia-Pacific regional product marketing manager of data centre business, based in Singapore.<p>He said putting an India-focused data centre in Singapore may not cost more, but it could affect speed.<p>"What matters is latency. At the end of the day, if a service provider is able to provide acceptable latency for the end customers by serving from outside the region and there's no conflicting regulation such as data sovereignty, then there's not anything in the APEC countries we know would be an issue right now."<p>($1 = 1.2495 Singapore dollars)

Google feeds 'net giants India and China from data centers next door

Google Inc opened its first two data centers in Asia on Wednesday to cater to the world's fastest growing consumer technology markets, b...

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Twitter, the protector of news?

As Twitter rings in the new year, it's got some big ideas for expanding its audience by forging more news partnerships.<p>The social network is already a major platform for news distribution, but now Twitter is looking to amp up those efforts, partly through media partnerships. On Tuesday, Twitter's recently hired head of news, Vivian Schiller, offered some thoughts about why those partnerships are important, and what Twitter's hoping to do with them.<p>Schiller's hiring was announced in October. The 26-year news veteran was scooped up from NBC News to help Twitter become a bigger destination for news and to expand its advertising revenue by ushering in more media deals. Those partnerships, Schiller suggested in a blog post, could be good not just for Twitter, but also for journalism's survival.<p>Traditional news companies have struggled to adapt their businesses to keep up with the pace of the Internet, especially on mobile. One reason why the traditional news companies' move to digital media has been slow is that legacy platforms including radio, print and broadcast TV still generate most of their revenue, Schiller said.<p>"The cash cow must be protected," Schiller said in a LinkedIn post. However, the legacy platforms pay for forms of journalism such as foreign and investigative stories that digital startups might not be able to afford, she said.<p>Competition?<p>One question brought to fore by the digital age is whether Twitter and other Internet companies are trying to compete with traditional news outlets. Schiller, however, seems to view the industries' interests as being complementary.<p>"In my new job, I'll get to work with old and new friends at news organizations to find ways for them to reach a bigger audience via Twitter," she said. The media-partnering responsibilities she has held at places like NBC News, NPR, and The New York Times have been geared toward finding ways to disrupt traditional strategies, "but not destroy," she said.<p>Schiller said she would serve as Twitter's "in-house evangelist for what journalists and consumers need from the product," working toward the broader goal of positioning Twitter as a tool for keeping people informed.<p>The job represents new terrain for Schiller. "What if instead of being the digital person in a media company, I should be the media person in a tech company?" she said. "Could those same relationships work in reverse?"<p>For it to work, Twitter also needs to strike a balance between expanding its platform without cannibalizing the advertising revenue of its media partners.<p>Now a public company, Twitter is focused on building new partnerships to scale out its business and turn a profit. "We plan to continue to leverage our media relationships to drive more content distribution on our platform and create more value for our users and advertisers," Twitter said in its recent IPO filing.<p>In addition to Twitter, companies like Yahoo and Facebook are also positioning some of their services as digital newspapers. In Facebook's case, certain user preferences, like the pages they follow, are being used to make news content appear more prominently on the site. But measuring the value of news based on such digital signals can be is tricky, so it's important for people to question how Internet companies judge newsworthiness, industry experts have said.

Twitter, the protector of news?

As Twitter rings in the new year, it's got some big ideas for expanding its audience by forging more news partnerships. The social netwo...

Read more »

Twitter, the protector of news?

As Twitter rings in the new year, it's got some big ideas for expanding its audience by forging more news partnerships.<p>The social network is already a major platform for news distribution, but now Twitter is looking to amp up those efforts, partly through media partnerships. On Tuesday, Twitter's recently hired head of news, Vivian Schiller, offered some thoughts about why those partnerships are important, and what Twitter's hoping to do with them.<p>Schiller's hiring was announced in October. The 26-year news veteran was scooped up from NBC News to help Twitter become a bigger destination for news and to expand its advertising revenue by ushering in more media deals. Those partnerships, Schiller suggested in a blog post, could be good not just for Twitter, but also for journalism's survival.<p>Traditional news companies have struggled to adapt their businesses to keep up with the pace of the Internet, especially on mobile. One reason why the traditional news companies' move to digital media has been slow is that legacy platforms including radio, print and broadcast TV still generate most of their revenue, Schiller said.<p>"The cash cow must be protected," Schiller said in a LinkedIn post. However, the legacy platforms pay for forms of journalism such as foreign and investigative stories that digital startups might not be able to afford, she said.<p>Competition?<p>One question brought to fore by the digital age is whether Twitter and other Internet companies are trying to compete with traditional news outlets. Schiller, however, seems to view the industries' interests as being complementary.<p>"In my new job, I'll get to work with old and new friends at news organizations to find ways for them to reach a bigger audience via Twitter," she said. The media-partnering responsibilities she has held at places like NBC News, NPR, and The New York Times have been geared toward finding ways to disrupt traditional strategies, "but not destroy," she said.<p>Schiller said she would serve as Twitter's "in-house evangelist for what journalists and consumers need from the product," working toward the broader goal of positioning Twitter as a tool for keeping people informed.<p>The job represents new terrain for Schiller. "What if instead of being the digital person in a media company, I should be the media person in a tech company?" she said. "Could those same relationships work in reverse?"<p>For it to work, Twitter also needs to strike a balance between expanding its platform without cannibalizing the advertising revenue of its media partners.<p>Now a public company, Twitter is focused on building new partnerships to scale out its business and turn a profit. "We plan to continue to leverage our media relationships to drive more content distribution on our platform and create more value for our users and advertisers," Twitter said in its recent IPO filing.<p>In addition to Twitter, companies like Yahoo and Facebook are also positioning some of their services as digital newspapers. In Facebook's case, certain user preferences, like the pages they follow, are being used to make news content appear more prominently on the site. But measuring the value of news based on such digital signals can be is tricky, so it's important for people to question how Internet companies judge newsworthiness, industry experts have said.

Twitter, the protector of news?

As Twitter rings in the new year, it's got some big ideas for expanding its audience by forging more news partnerships. The social netwo...

Read more »