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Citigroup’s customer data compromised!

June 9th, 2011
Credit cards

Data Breach

It is unbelievable but remains a fact that a determined hacker can easily get into anyone’s computer and access confidential data. Even a big corporate giant, Citigroup, was not spared!

According to Citigroup, hackers have breached Citigroup’s network and accessed data of thousands of bank-card holders in the United States.

The incident was discovered last month during a daily ‘check-up’. 1% of the bank’s credit card accounts have been compromised. Customer names, account numbers, addresses, email addresses and a few other demographic fields were accessed. The hackers were not lucky enough to get info such as birth dates, card security codes, card expiration dates and social security numbers as they were stored at a different location.

The bank’s spokesperson confirmed that the bank is reaching out to affected customers and issuing them new credit cards. Strong security measures have been implemented to prevent such an incident from taking place again. Law-enforcement officials have been notified.

What is shocking is that Citigroup knew that their customers’ data was compromised back in early May. But the public is informed only now, one full month later. One Canadian found out about the problem after his ATM transaction was denied, rather than through official notification from his bank.

FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said on Thursday that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp is in the process of implementing guidelines for banks and might ask some banks to increase their data security when a customer accesses his online accounts.

Data breaches are a fact of today’s cyber world but companies are obligated to inform their customers in time.

About Alertsec: You cannot afford to wait any longer. Alertsec Xpress, the market leader in data encryption, is the need of the hour. Alertsec Xpress offers full disk encryption and is therefore superior to other encryption providers in security, performance, strength and ease-of-use for administrators and users. Alertsec also offers a very good and easy-to-use laptop security service that includes more than the traditional software licensing model. Feel free to subscribe for your personal 30-day free trial

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ACS: Law Fined over Data Breach

May 25th, 2011
data slide

DATA Breach

Data breaching is one the most dangerous criminal offense in the case of internet and computer law. According to ICO every organization should encrypt their data, so that an unknown person can not access their data. The law says that the data stored in the computers and mobile data storage devices of every organization must be encrypted, because these are the main targets of the hackers. As most of the data contains personal details, so if anybody hacks the data or it is lost due to the fault of some people the organization will suffer as the hacker can  misuse it for his own benefits.

Though every organization is aware about the effect of data loss and the importance of data encryption but most of them neglect this part. According to modern research the negligence towards the data encryption mainly happens due to the lack of commitment of the ICO. In most of cases it has been found that ICO released the accused person or the organization by just imposing a minimum fine, whereas the actual amount of fine is very high.

Recently Andrew Crossley, the controversial solicitor has been accused of data breach. It has been found that he and his organization was sharing files illegally. However the information security world was shocked when they found that Andrew had been fined only £1,000 by the ICO for data breach.

The ICO gave some reasons in their defense. In a press conference they announced that the way Andrew and his organization were using the personal details of other organizations and their clients that were totally illegal and unlawful. That was against the law of data breaching. As soon as it came to the sight of ICO they took immediate action against Andrew. But as ACS law had seized all the properties of Andrew so he was unable to pay the full amount. Taking this into consideration, ICO decreased the amount of fine.

But the people are not happy with this decision, because according to the law of data breach the amount of fine must be £400  * the number of people’s data has been misused. So the amount should have been much higher than £1,000. They have even questioned the impact and power of ACS law and ICO. Because according to the law ICO has no power to investigate the property of the accused person. They have to depend on the documents of that person and it is very easy to manipulate those documents. Though the case of Andrew went to the court and the court also announced him guilty of data breach and misusing but still the ICO failed to fine him more.

This is not the first time where a person has been released by the ICO after charging a very low amount of money. As a result of this the people are losing their faith in ICO day by day. So the government has to take some immediate steps to increase the power of ICO.

About Alertsec:
Alertsec is the front runner in offering data encryption as a fully managed service. We provide protection for all information stored on laptops and PCs in an easy, convenient, and cost-effective way. By using industry leading Check Point Full Disk Encryption (former Pointsec) software, Alertsec has created a web based encryption service that radically simplifies deployment and management of PC encryption.

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Posted in Alertsec Express, Lawsuits and settlements, Security Flaw, data breach, data encryption

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Why Data Encryption is Important

May 7th, 2011
Part of the EFF's DES cracking machine which w...

Data Encryption

As the technology is upgrading day by day, people are getting more involved to their work and they have very little time for the things which seem negligible at the starting but can be very dangerous in future. In today’s world 99% people are more interested in sending and receiving data through internet and mobile data storage devices. But among those 995 people 90% people do not encrypt their data though they know that the data contains personal information and the chances of data lose or hacking is very high.

Sending data through internet has high chances of getting hacked. Because the number of hackers are increasing in a rapid rate day by day and those hackers are so efficient in their job that they can easily hack the unencrypted data from the internet. And if those hacked data contains any sort of personal information then they can misuse those data, even they can make some criminal offenses by using those data and without doing anything wrong you will become a criminal. At the time of sending data through internet lot of people can easily access your data if your data is not encrypted.

Another importance of data encryption is that is helps to protect your computer from viruses. Though you may think that your computer/ laptop is protected enough because of the anti-virus and router you are using, but remember keeping your data safe from the hackers is not that easy. And if your computer becomes virus affected, then any other computer presents in your office or home can be easily affected by the virus.

Now internet is available in the hostels, cyber cafe, hotels and those connections have no protection. So the data can easily be hacked of accessed by some other person.

And data encryption also helps to protect the data of different mobile data storage devices. As the data storage devices sometimes contain personal or sensible data, so the loss of any storage device can be very harmful for us. Because any one can misuse those data. But we will keep our data encrypted then we will be sure that no one can misuse those data.

These are the main reason behind the data encryption. Data encryption not only keeps our data safe but also helps us to be tension free.

About Alertsec:-

Alertsec Xpress is the No.1 encryption service provider for hundreds of banks and financial institutions worldwide. They are providing 24*7 customer service system. By offering computer protection software, encryption with lowest TCO (Total Cost of Operation), Checkpoint and Pointec they are assuring to make data secure. For more details about Alertsec log on to: http://www.alertsec.com

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Posted in Alertsec Express, Data Protection, Encryption, Encryption Chip, Hard Disk, data encryption

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Full Disk Encryption – An Executive’s Introduction To How It Works And Other Issues

May 2nd, 2011
Icon from Nuvola icon theme for KDE 3.x.

Encryption

File encryption or Full disk encryption?? That is the most important question for most of the organizations now a day. Because some of the organizations encrypted their important files but still failed to prevent data lose, and file encryption does not allow encryption on in and out moving data. So the organizations are not finding any profit in adopting data encryption. Full disk encryption is the only solution of their anxiety.

Now the organizations are not sure whether they will apply the full disk encryption on each and every system of their organization or just on those systems which contain sensitive data. According to PCI and ICO the answer is an organization should apply the full disk encryption to all the system. Because only a few stuffs of the organization can access the sensitive data but still there is a chance that due to some emergency an ordinary stuff can also get access to sensitive data. So, be ready before the mistake has been done.

Full disk encryption not only save your sensitive data but also assures you the protection of each and every single data of your organization. But some people do not want to apply encryption because of some drawbacks and those drawbacks can cause data loss or computer malfunction, because the following things can happen due to encryption:-

  1. Password forgotten.
  2. Problem in the hardware.
  3. Data corruption due to the encryption of data.
  4. Normally people like to make some common as well as weak password just because they can remember it. Those passwords are known as weak keys password.
  5. Sometimes we write down our passwords because we do not have the confidence that we can remember them.
  6. Data corrupted by the encryption process.
  7. The encryption algorithm can be cracked sometimes.

But we have to keep in mind before applying full disk encryption that encryption does not enhance or reduce risks, it just provides protection to your data from data loss.  So it depends on us that how we are applying the full disk encryption process to our system. Before the implementation of full disk encryption we have to be very careful about the following factors:-

  1. The encryption process is approved by the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) or not.
  2. Due to presence of scratch pad the modern day’s computers cannot protect the hard disk and full memory. And the dangerous thing is that through these scratch pads the hackers can easily access your data.

Another problem with encryption is that there is a chance of potential data loss, but in case of full disk encryption as full disk encryption works in the hardware level not on the software level, so the chances of interaction between the encryption and other applications automatically reduces and as a result of it the probability of data loss also reduces.

So, if your system has sensitive data and you do not want to lose those data, and then apply full disk encryption to your system because it does not drop the speed of your system but it makes your system fully protected.

About ALERTSEC:-

Alertsec Xpress is the No.1 encryption service provider for hundreds of banks and financial institutions worldwide. They are providing 24*7 customer service system. By offering computer protection software, encryption with lowest TCO (Total Cost of Operation), Checkpoint and Pointec they are assuring to make data secure. For more details about Alertsec log on to: http://www.alertsec.com

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Posted in Alertsec Express, Computer security, Data Protection, Encryption, Hard Disk, full disk encryption

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ICO HITS OUT AT DATA BREACH FIGURES

April 30th, 2011
My BenQ Joybook 8100 showing the Dutch BenQ ar...

Laptop Encryption

According to different sources the number of cases registered in ICO is 2565, while action taken against only 37 cases. This generates a huge dissatisfaction against the working process of ICO. The power of ICO is now under doubt. The rumour is that ICO is nothing but a paper tiger and as a result of it everybody is thinking that the number data breaches cases will increase as there is less chances on punishment.

The fault of ICO was highlighted after data breaching incident of Viasat. After that case Viasat claimed that ICO is playing with the figures of fine for data breaching. According to different sources Viasat was penalized by $310,000 for data breaching while the actual figure have to be $500,000.

There is also more dissatisfaction against the ICO in different Organizations due to the lethargic working process of ICO. As, according to different expert the number of cases of data breaching is increasing day by day so ICO has to be more quick prompt in taking action, but the reality tells that the number of cases recorded in the ICO remains static. Means the actual data has been hampered.

ICO denies all those complain and in a conference they announced that they have the actual figures and that is 37. They also assured the public that they are in hurry to take action against those organizations that are involving in data breaching.

But the truth is far different from the announcement of ICO. According the inner source of ICO, ICO has lost a large number of report files related to data breaching. Though there are a several number steps can be taken by ICO against data breaching but they are not interested to it. Without telling the organizations about the importance of data encryption software, laptop encryption software, encryption, data security, importance of hard drive encryption, laptop encryption, full disk encryption, computer protection they are more interested in taking fines. And the main problem is that they are also not very sure about the amount of fines, as a result of that the figure varies from organization to organization.

About Alertsec:

Alertsec Xpress is a very easy and convenient service which enables us to secure valuable information on our laptops. Alertsec Xpress has found the ultimate way of deploying the protection via the web. They have found the ultimate way of deploying the protection via the web. They are the no.1 encryption service provider for hundreds of banks and financial institutions worldwide.

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Posted in Alertsec Express, Data Protection, Encryption, computer security software, full disk encryption, laptop encryption

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