Information Security

The risks from Cyber cime - Hacking - Loss of Data Privacy - Identity Theft and other topical threats - can be greatly reduced by implementation of robust IT Security controls ...

Adam Nybäck System Developer at Anyro

Santander UK online bank attacked

If you have logged in to your Santander (Alliance & Leicester) online bank recently your account may have been compromised. One of the bank's customers noticed this when he was prompted with an unusual SSL certificate warning for www.polycache.com. What first looked like a man-in-the-middle attack turned out to be an injection which tries to lo...

19 April 2011 /security

Anthony Cossey Project Manager at Fixnetix ltd

Rise of the Boot Disk

I am now asking friends and family to keep a spare CD or USB Flash Drive on which to keep a LIVE version of a linux distribution, why do i do this? Well there are a few good reasons even for the most careful of users. If you are not sure what a LIVE CD is then please do check out the excellent article at Wikipedia here http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

09 March 2011 /security

Retired Member 

13 million people in the UK have been affected by card fraud

Ever been a victim of card fraud? If you haven’t than you are perhaps luckier than you think you are, or you are already taking steps to protect your valuable financial information. According to our latest CPP research, 28% of adults have now been a victim of card fraud in the UK. When you do the maths this means that over 13 million people have be...

24 January 2011 /security

Steven Murdoch Royal Society University Research Fellow at University College London

UK Cards Association attempt to supress Cambridge research

The UK Cards Association (previously known as APACS) has written to the University of Cambridge asking them to remove a paper, claiming that it contains information that might be of use to criminals. The thesis, from a master's project by Omar Choudary, showed how to build a device that protects cardholders from tampered Chip & PIN terminals. ...

25 December 2010 /security

Retired Member 

New Years Regulations

As 2010 draws to a close, it seems an appropriate time to consider the changes that have taken place over the last twelve months and look ahead to the coming year. In terms of payments security, 2010 was a big year for PCI DSS, with version 2.0 of the standard coming into force. Despite showing progress and clarifying a few points, however, it’s fa...

23 December 2010 /security /payments

Retired Member 

'PROTECT OUR DATA OR BE FINED' STATES THE UK CONSUMER!

Despite Information Commissioner doling out his first-ever fines for Data Protection Act breaches, the UK consumer wants tougher penalties for those deemed to be wrong-doers. Isn’t it great when you finally hear something completely unprovoked – and isn’t it also sweet music to your ears? It appears the ever-sharp UK consumer has obviously been r...

06 December 2010 /security /regulation

Retired Member 

RANCOUR AND 10M EURO BILL FOLLOWS UBS EMAIL ERROR

Ever clicked send on an email, and instantly regretted it? I think we’ve all been there – but perhaps not to the scale of one UBS employee this week, where a small error has created some rather significant repercussions. Yes, this is the story of a UBS employee who inadvertently sent an email containing financial details of the then client General...

23 November 2010 /security /regulation

Retired Member 

UK Businesses are Falling Victim to the Same Old Scams

Following recent news that more than two-thirds of companies have been hit by data breaches over the past year, the report featured in Computer Weekly is an interesting, if not alarming, confirmation that fraud is on the rise. Although person-present payments have improved security measures due to developments in global security standards like PCI...

23 November 2010 /security /payments

Retired Member 

Why don't we check our credit reports?

We all know about identity fraud and the various ways this can happen, but what about the tools to fight identity fraud? Well, there are industry measures in place to stop people’s identities being used fraudulently like the work of the Dedicated Cheque and Plastic Crime Unit and CIFAS, the Fraud Intelligence Sharing System and the banks use of int...

22 November 2010 /security

Retired Member 

Apple: the 800 pound gorilla of mobile payments

To date, the poor availability of phones with NFC technology has been one of the factors holding back the use of this technology to enable wave-and-pay mobile payments in a shop or peer-to-peer payments by touching phones together. It seemed earlier this year that bridging technologies may provide the kick start needed for contactless payments to ...

03 November 2010 /payments