Bloomington Students Learn Importance of Combating Cyber Criminals

News Beat

Rasmussen College’s Bloomington campus opened up the ears and eyes of those interested in a career in information security on Oct. 30 during an event focused on security breaches and crimes, and how they happen.Marc Peterson, a senior analyst in information protection at Target Corp., and Jake Bernier, a senior information security specialist at U.S. Bank, covered three main topics during the event. They addressed how large breaches can happen, reviewed information on information security jobs focused on defending this type of crime and examined security from the attackers’ perspective.
Security breaches are increasingly becoming more of a problem
Security breaches have become a huge issue, especially in the past five years. You may recognize some of these breaches, including the cyber-attack on J.P. Morgan Chase that compromised information from 76 million households or Home Depot where cyber thieves stole up to 56 million card numbers. 
Unfortunately, only reported breaches are known and companies may not be required to report breaches. Additionally, most companies do not know they’ve been breached, and sometimes they don’t find out until six months after it’s happened depending on the industry.
Many breaches often happen at the point-of-sale (POS) devices, which are dependent on the ever-popular nationwide credit card system.
“Current POS malware can easily steal credit card data,” Peterson said. “If you research it, you can buy the malware very inexpensively.”
This elevates the problems for credit card holders, merchants and issuers because they are all affected if credit card fraud were to occur. For example, the credit card holder will need a new card and to be reimbursed for any money that was taken.  Cybercrime also poses a problem for the economy. McAfee Intel Security estimates the annual cost to the global economy from cybercrime is more than $400 billion. Some companies have been forced to shift their employment away ...

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