Compliance

It has been nearly a year since the Target breach has tuned the world into what fraud managers have been dealing with for years.

2014 was a big year for payments. Disruption came from within the financial services industry and from outsiders like Apple and Walmart. Mainstream payment companies had to respond to these new competitors as well as adapt to fresh attention from regulators and fraudsters.

In its first year of heavy involvement in testing and certifying payment security technology, scientists at Underwriters Laboratories have determined that tokenization should be a significant piece of a strong security "triangle."

Late last week, hackers took down Payza's blog and posted a mocking message in its place, implying that they were sitting on a treasure trove of stolen data. Payza says this was merely a hacker's stunt, and that no data of real value could have been compromised, but the company must still deal with the event's damage to its brand.

Charlie Shrem, the former Bitcoin Foundation Inc. executive who pleaded guilty to charges tied to the illicit online bazaar "Silk Road," was sentenced to two years in prison by a judge who rejected his bid to remain free and "change the world."

Staples Inc., the largest U.S. office-supply retailer, said 1.16 million payment cards may have been affected in a series of data breaches that occurred from July into September.

The Sony Pictures web attack may have led you to question whether your own business was secure and if the information your clients provide via different payment methods can be breached, causing mistrust between business owner and vendor.

Payment processor Payza's blog suffered a Web attack on Friday, Dec. 19, though the company said the assailants did not compromise sensitive business information.

Large security incidents this year included JPMorgan Chase's August breach affecting 76 million households and seven million small businesses, Home Depot's breach of 56 million card account records it confirmed in September, and the Sony hack discovered in November, in which emails were stolen and hard drives destroyed. Here are some educated guesses about some of the security threats that will crop up next year.

WASHINGTON — End-of-year lists are all about the show-stoppers, and nothing stopped the show like NCUA's proposed rule on risk-based capital.