BankInfoSecurity.com "The Agency Insider" Blog RSS Syndication

Passwords: Prying Eyes are All Atwitter

Passwords - they are the bane of information security pros everywhere, and they're back in the headlines again.

Mortgage Fraud: Dirty Little Secrets

The FBI recently announced it had 2400 mortgage fraud investigations ongoing - nearly double from the year before.

Why Madoff's Mess Can't Ever Happen Again

As I listened to Bernie Madoff get his prison sentence meted out to him by Judge Denny Chin, I felt some tinge of vindication. But not having been directly affected by the largest Ponzi scheme in history, I can't imagine what the more than 1,000 victims of his unprecedented crime felt at that same time.

Social Networking: What Don't You Want A Prospective Employer To Know?

The power of social networking web sites can be measured by just looking at the number of hits (or visits) to a person's web page on such well-known sites as MySpace or Facebook.

The negative side web users should consider before placing information on such social networking sites include the connection one MySpace page owner had to last year's Eliot Spitzer scandal.

Consumers Come First With Obama's New Watchdog Agency

The Obama financial regulatory reform plan includes a new watchdog agency to protect consumers from deceptive or dangerous mortgages, credit cards, and other risky financial products. It can't come at a better time.

Foreclosure Rescue Scams: Educate Your Customers

Driving home every day along the New Jersey highways, I often see the signs offering "Save Your Home from Foreclosure" with a toll free number to call for more information.

It is the sign of the times. Foreclosure rescue scams are on the rise, along with mortgage fraud.

Pandemics of The Past and Lessons Learned

I certainly wasn't around during the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-1919 - I vaguely remember the 1968 Asian Flu pandemic as a small child - but some of my relatives recall that health catastrophe of 88 years ago.

My 95-year-old great uncle remembers the 1919 school year as being abbreviated, cut short as a second round of infections that hit the central Indiana community where he and my maternal grandmother grew up.

Is PCI the Humpty Dumpty of Information Security?

As I reviewed the testimony from the other week's hearing on the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) in Washington, D.C., a nursery rhyme popped into my head. While people called to testify about PCI and its effectiveness managed to dodge that all of the breached entities of the last few years were at one point PCI-compliant, but ended up non-compliant when they were broken into by hackers (this includes TJX, Hannaford, Heartland, RBS WorldPay) my thought was, "Is PCI the Humpty Dumpty of information security?"

Top Internet Scams for You - and Your Customers - to Avoid

Among the layoffs, companies downsizing, slashing budgets and falling stock prices, there is one area of the economy that appears to be flourishing - crime via the Internet.

The Internet Crime Compliant Center (IC3) says that reports of Internet-based crime jumped 33 percent in 2008, according to the group that monitors web-based fraud.

Security Budget Battle: Arm Yourself with These Questions

It is an age old question: Who really is in charge of security? A look back into history, one can see the origination of the word "password" and how it came from the guard at the gate of a city or castle, who upon approached, would say "Halt, who goes there?"