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Michigan Convenience Chain Latest Apparent POS Fraud Victim

Written by Evan Schuman
November 23rd, 2006
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More in-store POS-related security reports surfaced this week, with a Mchigan convenience store chain, the latest to apparently be hit. This is the latest in a series of well-publicized retail victims, including OfficeMax as well as Dollar Tree and Sam’s Club.

The latest incident reportedly involves Wesco, a gas station and convenience store chain with 51 locations in Michigan. Computerworld reported this week that several financial institutions canceled thousands of credit and debit cards in Michigan because of fraud concerns related to the retailer’s apparent data compromise. Wesco’s Web site confirmed “the possibility of credit card fraud associated with card use at our facilities” and that the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Secret Service were investigating transactions between July 25 through Sept 7, 2006.


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Kill All The Passwords

This article does mention, but does not give enough attention to, the fact that the attacks discussed are only feasible when the encrypted password file can be copied and subjected to an offline attack. The trick is to have authentication performed on a separate, much more strongly secured host - such as an Active Directory Domain Controller, or a Kerberos server, or a NIS+ server, or even using something as banal as an LDAP-over-SSL authentication dialog. In these environments, the odds of the "password file" being stolen and subjected to an offline attack go to near zero, and only online attacks may be carried out by the attacker. With sensible exponential backoff between failed password attempts, lockout after a modest number of failed attempts on a single account, and pattern detection, that minimum 7 character password is quite secure enough. Passwords aren't dead yet for security purposes, and they will be with us for a very long while to come for practical purposes. The trick is to employ them correctly. Read more...
The possibilities you describe are years away from being implemented at best, so for the moment passwords are an ugly reality. Luckily, password managers can easily manage hundreds of passwords of any length. The only thing a user needs to remember is the master password. It seems like an easier task to educate users on how to use password managers rather than implement complex security technology on a global basis. Read more...