We keep hearing about them in the news. The tallies are astounding: 145 million user accounts compromised here, 40 million credit cards stolen there. What isn't always as clear with the most high-profile data breaches is how they occurred in the first place and what you can do to prevent seeing your organization in a similar headline.
Small and medium-sized businesses may think they're immune to the kinds of attacks that wreaked havoc on Target last year, but they're susceptible to the same nefarious forces -- sometimes even more so, as they can lead hackers to a bigger prize.
A large batch of stolen credit card numbers for sale on an underground forum may have come from a breach at P.F. Chang's China Bistro, a US restaurant chain that said on Tuesday it is investigating.
Sally Beauty Holdings confirmed Monday that it fell victim to a data breach, an incident that may have coincided with a project to update point-of-sale terminals at its U.S. stores, a recent regulatory filing shows.
Target said Thursday it investigated but ultimately dismissed early signs of a data breach, a decision it likely regrets after suffering one of the largest payment-card and personal-data breaches on record.