Data and information management

In a breach incident that illustrates how long a company can do business without knowing fraudsters are potentially stealing its card data, Charge Anywhere LLC informed its merchants it has found and shut down malware that initially entered its network five years ago.

As card networks develop tokens to stand in for account numbers in online and mobile commerce, they may be able to standardize the experience across all companies that handle payments, said Mike Matan, head of global network business at American Express.

Rallying its members to wipe out passwords, the Faster IDentity Online Alliance — an organization of more than 150 payments and technology businesses — released standards Dec. 9 for multi-factor e-commerce authentication.

Companies seeking to shield valuable data from criminals and government spying should assume the attackers have already penetrated their systems and adjust defensive strategies, security firms McAfee and Symantec said.

Mobile security provider InAuth has hired Lisa Stanton to be its next chief executive.

Payfone has spent the past five years partnering with the U.S. phone companies to connect 300 million people to its identity system. The company now hopes banks will want to tap into that database for authentication purposes.

New York’s Department of Financial Services (NY DFS) has recently issued guidance on its BitLicense proposal, which would create a transitional license for Bitcoin.

Despite the many high-profile breaches that occurred over the past year, too many businesses have not adopted strong security practices and as many as a third don't have a clear understanding of where their sensitive data is stored or how it is protected.

Following the disclosure by a name brand retailer that their point-of-sale (POS) system had been breached, shoppers outside one of the retailer’s brick and mortar locations unanimously told a television reporter that cash was the safest way to pay in-person.

As mobile commerce and other new technologies change the way people shop, fraudsters are changing their methods to adapt. Banks, fintech providers and consumers are all looking at security in new ways.

Total holiday sales are expected to reach $863 billion in 2014, up from $822 billion last year. That is a staggering amount of money, and the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas make or break a sales year for large and small businesses alike.

The biggest bank in the country now lets opted-in mobile Android and Apple customers view their balances without entering their user names and passwords.

California officials are considering whether to regulate digital currencies such as Bitcoin after concluding they have the authority to do so under existing law.

After spending six of his 10 years in the U.S. Air Force as a cybersecurity professional, Chris Gerritz brought his expertise to the retail payments industry. His startup, Infocyte, operates on the premise that hacks into payment systems are inevitable.

U.S. consumer spending this holiday season appears to be on track to surpass last year's even after initial reports of a Black Friday retail-sales slump, according to MasterCard Inc. Chief Executive Officer Ajay Banga.

Target Corp. must defend itself against claims that its failure to shield computer systems allowed hackers to steal the account data of millions of shoppers, forcing banks to reimburse fraudulent charges and issue new credit and debit cards.

Regional and large community banks have proven they can persuade customers to add new plastic, emblazoned with the banks' own logos, to their wallets. The question for these issuers is: how much farther can they go with credit cards?

The annual Cyber Monday shopping holiday is a boon to mobile payments, but remains a significant challenge for e-commerce security.

U.S. Bancorp recently began offering paperless account opening after seeing good results from electronically signed and documented lending. Yet a large segment of the industry still hesitates to use this technology, for legal, technical and cultural reasons.

Online shopping and payments has become a popular holiday option, making it vital that online merchants to ensure their sites can handle the spike in web traffic and transaction volume for "Black Friday" and the rest of the holiday shopping season.