March 23, 2009
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News: Cyber Thieves Target Mom and Pop.
The big business cyber black market is new targeting small business to steal sensitive credit card information. They figure it's easier to steal from Mom and Pop then from big banks. So, "Why not?" The big numbers are not there but, face it, it's easier to steal from (and hurt) the more vulnerable. Like a raw effluent flow across the industry, they seek out "the path of least resistance". The credit card security in many mom-and-pop shops doesn't have the extra revenue for higher protection nor do they have the in-house expertise to iron-clad their credit card systems.
As many as 20% of these small business aren't even running virus protection. A full 60% of them don't have the sophistication to set up encryption over their wireless networks. Worse still, 66% don't even have a credit card security procedural plan. They make easy targets for credit card theft. Perhaps the most distressing news is that few of them are even aware of their vulnerability to credit card thieves and cyber crime.
Understandably, most of these small businesses believe that they are too insignificant to be targets compared to larger institutions. What they don't realize, however, is the recent shift. Larger business have become much more vigilant about stopping credit card cyber crime and so, the focus has shifted heavily toward mom-and-pop. It's so extreme in fact that now, 85% of the successful credit card fraud today has been launched against small-to-mid sized business.
The biggest part of the problem seems to stem from the latency of implementing full PCI Compliance among the huge number of small-to-mid sized businesses out there. PCI Compliance is the "Payment Card Industry"'s bedrock security for credit cards. However, PCI is not regarded by any means to be ironclad. It is considered to be a minimum starting place, though.