business technology associates
In today's marketplace, payment cards represent both tremendous opportunities for businesses and significant threats to the data stored on payment cards and in accounts. PCI requirements are designed to ensure the security and privacy of cardholder data in these complex and diverse environments.
PCI requires at least the following:
- Install and maintain a firewall configuration to protect cardholder data
- Do not use vendor-supplied defaults for system passwords and other security parameters
- Protect stored cardholder data
- Encrypt transmission of cardholder data across open, public networks
- Use and regularly update anti-virus software or programs
- Develop and maintain secure systems and applications
- Restrict access to cardholder data by business need-to-know
Once the bailout program is instituted, Janco Associates forecasts that there were be scams of all sorts associated with "special-offers" to help individuals recover some of the recent stock market losses.
The credit crisis has triggered a number of acquisitions in recent months, and fraudsters have previously tried to exploit such events by orchestrating phishing attacks against the acquiring companies. One motivation for these types of attack is the increased chance of success when potential victims have less familiarity with the genuine website that is being fraudulently mimicked.
With all of the turmoil in the financial services markets phishing attackers are going to town with all of the mergers, takeovers, and bailouts. Citigroup, Wachovia, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo to mention a few have seen increases in phishing attacks.
The proliferation of laptops has put more organizations at risk: Janco predicts that laptops will account for more than 50 percent of the PC market in 2009 and expects that overall notebook sales in the U.S. will surpass desktop sales in that same year. Every year hundreds of thousands of laptops are either stolen or left behind in taxicabs or at hotel rooms. Last year alone, 300,000 laptops were reported lost or stolen in the U.S., with less than 2 percent ever recovered. 
A laptop theft is not just a l