How embarrasing… Computer security firms database hacked
The Washington Times, has a story from Brian Krebs of their Security Fix blog about …
Guidance Software — the leading provider of software used to diagnose hacker break-ins — has itself been hacked, resulting in the exposure of financial and personal data connected to thousands of law enforcement officials and network-security professionals.
Guidance Software notifified customers on December 7th, over 3000 credit card numbers were stolen. The security breech happened sometime in November. They notified their customers within 2 days of the discovery of the breakin and have decided no longer to store credit card information on their own servers. (Although the breakin went unnoticed for about 2 weeks.)
“This certainly highlights the fact that intrusions can happen to anybody and that nobody should be complacent about security,” he said. Colbert declined to discuss further details of the attack, citing the ongoing investigation.
Guidance stored customer records in unencrypted databases, and indefinitely retained customers’ “card value verification” (CVV) numbers, the three-digit codes on the back of credit cards that are meant to protect against fraud in online and telephone sales, according to Colbert and the notification letter sent to customers.
Merchant guidelines published by both Visa and Mastercard require sellers to encrypt customer credit-card databases. They are also prohibited from retaining CVV numbers for any longer than it takes to verify a given transaction.
“Unfortunately, most cyber crimes require being worked very quickly in order to gather data before it is purged either by attackers or just in the normal course of business,” said Doug Rehman, president of Rehman Technology Services in Mount Dora, Fla., who learned that his credit card and personal data had been exposed.
Wow, it’s certainly embarrasing I’m sure for a security related IT company to have such a breach. I’m pleased that their customers were notified so soon after discovery, however given the software they produce, you would think they might have detected it sooner. The unencrypted database of credit card numbers is a big no no from the standpoint of the credit card companies (and the retention of CCV numbers…) Maybe this can be a wake up call for any company that processes credit cards? I also wonder if the company became more of a target for the kind of software they write?