Bank of America Denies Breach

Detroit Cardholders Likely Affected by Third-Party

By Tracy Kitten

Bank of America branches in Greater Detroit were reportedly flooded this past weekend, after several BofA debit cardholders noticed fraudulent transactions on their accounts.

According to one local news report, the incident involves more than $100,000 in fraudulent debit transactions. Over the weekend, Detroit BofA branches were working to assess the geographic breadth of the incident, the news report states. How the cards may have been compromised, such as via a skimming attack, also was not known.

BofA spokeswoman Diane Wagner says BofA has not released any information about debit fraud, adding, "There was no breach at Bank of America."

BofA does not provide details about potential debit compromises, Wagner says. "If we think a customer's card has been compromised at a third-party location, we'll block and reissue the card, which is what we did in this case," she says.

To read the entire article, please click here - http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/articles.php?art_id=3479&rf=2011-03-29-eb

Protect Your Business From Identity Theft

By Barbara Weltman

Individuals aren’t the only targets of identity thieves. Businesses – small businesses in particular – can become victims of security breaches through their computers. According to the Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR) from Symantec for activities in the first half of 2005, phishing (a method of stealing confidential information such as passwords, credit card numbers and other financial information) grew by an average of 2.99 million messages a day to 5.70 million – a 40% increase over the second half of 2004.
 But you don’t have to remain exposed to identity thieves. You can take security measures to thwart their attempts to breach your systems.

Create a Security Plan

Take a long hard look at your business practices to see if you may be vulnerable to attack. Are customer information and your company financial data secure? To make certain of this, follow these steps (adapted from Symantec’s recommended security practices for small businesses at www.symantec.com/smallbiz)

To read the entire article, click here - http://www.smallbusinessadvocate.com/small-business-articles/protect-your-business-from-identity-theft-1529