Who Needs Information Security

You may not be convinced that you need information security after all your not a Fortune 500 company right? These businesses thought so too learn from there mistakes. Types of Businesses & Institutions that have experienced Information Security issues:

Information Security – Who needs it? Pizza Shops Do!

You own a small pizza shop or a chain of them perhaps but you could not possibly be the target of internet thieves. Mary’s Pizza Shack thought the same so learn from their mistake before your become a victim. Russian hacker’s managed to infect the transaction terminal that processed credit card orders which exposed customer’s accounts to unauthorized transactions.

Escrow Companies

Village View Escrow Inc learned the hard way that online banking is not an activity that should be taken lightly by a business. Poor email discipline led to the company’s systems being compromised and sensitive online banking credentials being compromised. The thieves then utilized their network to wire the money across the world causing significant financial loss to the company.

Banks

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is probing a computer-security breach targeting Citigroup Inc. that resulted in a theft of tens of millions of dollars by computer hackers who appear linked to a Russian cyber gang, according to government officials.

Oil Exploration

Three U.S. oil companies were targeted in a coordinated hack that sought valuable information about new discoveries of oil deposits and other data, according to a new report in the Christian Science Monitor. Read More http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/01/hack-for-oil#ixzz0weVrnoYZ

Hospitals

Fraser Health Authority in British Columbia is the latest company to suffer an information security incident that could have been prevented. A laptop in their pulmonary function lab containing sensitive patient information was stolen resulting in 600 patients data being potentially compromised. Worse yet the laptop was not protected by encryption or password protected making the data readily available to the criminal.

Colleges & Universities

We have previously highlighted an information security incident where a laptop theft from a hospital caused significant data loss and negative publicity.

Police Departments

The latest in our continuing series on real life information security incidents shows that even the police need information security. The Manchester Police Department recently experienced an information security incident and the negative publicity that results from such an event.

State Governments

I was browsing the latest information security incidents and noticed one from my home state of Delaware. The State of Delaware was affected by an information security incident due to careless data disclosure from their 3rd party service provider Aon Consulting. The end result was data disclosure of 22,000 state employees, putting them at a greater risk for identity theft.

Gas Stations

Thieves recently attached bank card skimmers to gas pumps at more than 30 service stations along several major highways in and around Denver, Colorado, the latest area to be hit by a scam that allows crooks to siphon credit and debit card account information from motorists filling up their tanks. Forced to re-issue an unusually high number of bank cards due to fraudulent charges on the accounts, a regional bank serving Colorado and surrounding states recently began searching for commonalities among the victimized accounts.

Consulting Firms

I was browsing the latest information security incidents and noticed one from my home state of Delaware. The State of Delaware was affected by an information security incident due to careless data disclosure from their 3rd party service provider Aon Consulting.