In this week's issue: CurrentC Is Ready To Launch, ATM Skimming Up In U.S., Five Men Arrested With Possible Connection To JPMorgan Hack, McLean Hospital Suffers Data Breach and in this week's Rippleshot blog post, we cover the latest updates from the Target data breach lawsuit.
CurrentC Is Ready To launch
When Apple Pay was first released in October of 2014, the retail industry was in the midst of developing their answer to the tech giant’s mobile payment platform, dubbed CurrentC. Last Thursday, the Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), a company founded and led by Best Buy, Target and Wal-Mart, announced that CurrentC is going to hit stores starting in August. Shoppers at select stores will be able to download and use CurrentC to make purchases. MCX will have to compete with other mobile payment platforms like Apple Pay, Google Wallet and Samsung Pay, some of which have been on the market for almost a year.
Consumers, retailers and payment experts are still wary of the effectiveness of CurrentC and its strength of security. Shortly after Apple Pay was released, CurrentC was found to have been hacked exposing the personal information of its early testers.
ATM Skimming Up in U.S. and Mexico
The beginning effects of the upcoming EMV migration ATM manufacturer NCR Corp. sent out a security update to its ATM deployers warning of an uptick in payment card skimming attacks in the US and in Mexico. In the security update, NCR began to notice that ATMs of all makes and models were seeing higher levels of skimming attacks involving ATM compromises. Those with knowledge of this situation believe that this uptick in skimming is directly related to the October 2015 EMV migration deadline. When financial institutions in the U.S. begin to issue the less secure version of the EMV-enabled cards, the payment cards that are currently being used by fraudsters will be worthless. To learn more about EMV adoption and what we can expect in the U.S. download our whitepaper here.
Five men arrested in possible connection with 2014 jpmorgan hack
In July of 2014, a massive network attack took place targeting JPMorgan Chase, one of the largest banks in the U.S. When the attack was discovered, 76 million American households and roughly 7 million small businesses had their personal information exposed in one of the largest data breaches to date. Nearly a year later, five individuals have been arrested for various cyber and money-laundering crimes with the help of U.S. agencies and international authorities. Federal authorities believe that some or all of the five men arrested may have been involved in the 2014 JPMorgan data breach. Sources close to the investigation have noted that the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office will seek to extradite two of the five men so that they can stand trial in the United States.
Sources close to the investigation have noted that the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office will seek to extradite two of the five men so that they can stand trial in the United States.
McLean hospital reports healthcare data breach, 12,600 affected
McLean Hospital, based in Massachusetts, announced earlier this week that the hospital had fallen victim to a data breach, compromising the valuable protected health information (PHI) of roughly 12,600 individuals. McLean Hospital discovered that four of its unencrypted backup data tapes were missing nearly two months ago. In a statement issued by the hospital, the PHI that was compromised included names, dates of birth, medical information and for some individuals, Social Security numbers.
McLean Hospital began mailing notification letters to all of the individuals affected by this healthcare breach on Tuesday.
MCLEAN HOSPITAL REPORTS HEALTHCARE DATA BREACH, 12,600 AFFECTED
Late last week, several financial institutions filed a request with the U.S. District Court of Minnesota, to unseal documents that the breached retailer has been attempting to keep classified as confidential. In the request, the banks believe that Target is claiming a large portion of their documents as confidential or highly confidential. Still in the discovery phase of the lawsuit, parties from both sides are requesting documents to help build their respective cases. With an expected decision on this motion to be made on August 12, get caught up on the latest news regarding Target’s data breach lawsuit.
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