Kyle Kennedy Chief Technology Officer STEALTHbits Technologies

Yet another card payment data breach is in the news again, today UPS said that information about customers who visited the locations between Jan. 20 and Aug. 11 of this year “may have been exposed,” including names, addresses, emails and payment card details.
 
Kyle Kennedy, CTO of STEALTHbits Technologies provided his initial reaction:
 
“How many more point of sale breaches need to occur industry wide before consumers rise up and start demanding proactive protection surrounding their personal information prior to the purchasing of goods and services from a company? Is it time for a third party service provider focused solely on financial transactions and securing the consumer’s personal information the answer for the consumer AND the retailer? Or is the risk of personal information potentially being breached so accepted by consumers that change isn’t possible?  I refuse to believe, as a consumer and a security executive, that change isn’t possible around one of the most fundamental components of business - the buying of goods and services via credit cards.
 
“Reading the emerging details of this breach it appears a malware component infiltrated UPS stores which resulted in the collection of credit card transaction information and consumer personal information being exposed – yet again. The key to this breach in my opinion is knowing where the most sensitive and critical data is within an organization and ensuring that data is protected, actively monitored, and understanding who has access to the data. These three key risk analysis points allow an organization of any size the ability to determine what their ‘threat surface’ is and provides the empirical data to determine how to reduce not only their threat surface but understand their risk of exposure associated with critical/sensitive data. Why is that important? Consumer confidence, brand recognition, market share, and investor confidence all are impacted negatively when a security breach of critical/sensitive information occurs. The loss of any four from my perspective more than justifies the proactive security and risk mitigation expenses necessary to properly secure critical/sensitive data.”

Founded in 2001, STEALTHbits has extensive experience and deep expertise in the management of Microsoft technologies like Active Directory and Exchange, and governance solutions for unstructured data. With consistent growth, profitability, and a tenured management team that’s been at it since the start, STEALTHbits has emerged as a favorite solution provider for the world’s largest, most notable organizations, as well as a preferred partner to leaders in technology.