Credit Card Security by Michael Desrosiers

Most Internet users are on-line shoppers who pay by credit card and are concerned about credit card on-line security and identity theft. Every day brings more on-line customers, more on-line shops and unfortunately more hackers who want to steal credit card information. The latest breach comes to us via the State of Rhode Island's government web site, www.RI.gov: http://www.projo.com/news/content/projo_20060128_hack28.222dfe26.html

What really makes this compromise even more appalling was that the company that supplies the service to the state, New England Interactive, so far has provided incomplete and conflicting responses to the Rhode Island's efforts to obtain accurate information regarding the size, nature and reason for the breach.

Currently, eleven services at RI.gov are temporarily off-line.

Fishing license renewal;
Boat license renewal;
Vehicle registration renewal;
Driver records;
Business tax payment;
Quarterly wage tax payment;
Agricultural-product permit renewal;
Student loan payment;
New business registration;
University of Rhode Island RAM account deposits and dining-plan changes;
Right-to-Know form filing for disclosing workplace hazardous substances.

Although difficult to pull off, thousands of credit cards are compromised on a fairly regular basis. Many users have become victims of these credit card theives. Skillful and resourceful crackers and poor web-shop security lead to major compromises that we read about frequently. Hopefully, if a site detects an attack, you might be notified in time to protect your card and prevent unauthorized charges.

Maybe!

To read more about questions you should ask and steps that you should take with services providers, please visit: http://aplawrence.com/MDesrosiers/mdaspsecurity.html.

To respond to this alert or previous newsletters or to inquire about an on-site presentation, please feel free to call us at 508-995-4933 or email us at mdesrosiers@m3ipinc.com.

Regards,

Michael Desrosiers
Founder
m3ip, Inc.
We Manage Risk, So You Can Manage Your Business
(O)508-995-4933
(C)774-644-0599
mdesrosiers@m3ipinc.com
http://www.m3ipinc.com

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Sun Jan 29 15:22:33 2006:   BigDumbDinosaur


...and unfortunately more hackers who want to steal credit card information.

The cretins who steal this information aren't hackers, they are criminals. People like me who play around with computers just to see what can be done with them are hackers. People who break into systems are crackers and should be squashed like the slimy bugs that they are.



Mon Jan 30 21:35:22 2006:   TonyLawrence


Most credit card companies now offer one-time numbers or numbers tied to a specific vendor etc. You can usually get these on-line very easily - your real credit card gets billed, but the site only sees the temporary number.



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