The White House heads west to Silicon Valley on Friday looking for ideas on how to improve the nation's cybersecurity, and members of President Barack Obama's administration are likely to get an earful.
A consortium that develops guidelines for protecting payment card data is hoping that emerging security technologies will help prevent breaches that made this year one of the worst ever on the security front.
The "Shellshock" flaw has the potential to pose a risk to the payments industry, but doesn't appear to have caused any problems yet, an official with a consortium run by major credit card companies warned on Tuesday.
While conducting a penetration test of a major Canadian retailer, Rob VandenBrink bought something from the store. He later found his own credit card number buried in its systems, a major worry.
The growing number of data breaches resulting in massive numbers of payment cards being stolen from retail stores and other businesses is occurring because they're failing to keep up with the Payment Card Industry's data security standard, according to the PCI Security Standards Council.
The heads of seven business organizations sent PCI Security Standards Council General Manager Bob Russo a cry for help earlier this month, saying the recession is making it "increasingly difficult" for merchants to meet the requirements of the Payment Card Industry's Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).