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New White House E-Commerce Security Report Trusts Technology Way Too Much

April 21st, 2011

Then there’s this one: “The pharmacy is not told Ali’s birth date or the reason for the prescription.” Wait a second. You want the pharmacy to know these things. That’s how bad prescriptions—where the background is unknown—are flagged by alert pharmacists. Shouldn’t a prescription for penile dysfunction for a 4-year-old raise eyebrows? And do you really want the pharmacist to not be told the reason for the prescription?

Here’s a good one that involves mobile carriers: “Consider the situation in which a woman, Keisha, requests medical information from the hospital her husband, John, has recently visited. The hospital requires that any such requests be authenticated using a high-assurance credential. In addition, the hospital requires patient approval before releasing personal medical information to other individuals. Keisha uses the browser on her cell phone to access the hospital Web site. The browser authenticates the hospital’s Web site domain so that Keisha knows she is not sending information to a fraudulent site. Keisha has a digital certificate issued by her trustmarked cell phone carrier (also her IDP), and the hospital validates the authenticity of the credential, her cell phone and her digital identity. Next, to receive patient approval for the release of personal records, the hospital obtains validation from John’s primary-care clinic (the AP). The primary-care provider validates and maintains the appropriate attributes in the form of John’s approval to release his medical information to Keisha. The hospital uses the clinic’s assertion as proof that John digitally signed a medical release authorization form for Keisha, so it allows Keisha to view John’s test results. Although all of these operations occur, they happen in the background. All Keisha has to do is browse to the secure Web site on her credentialed smartphone.”

Whoa! This is trusting technology way too much.

This last one was certainly written with the best of intentions, but read this example from the report from the perspective of a terrorist: “A large national emergency erupts on the coastline and a call for support results in an influx of first responders at the emergency site. A federal agency is tracking the event using its global satellite network and can share detailed information with state and local officials, utility providers and emergency first responders from all over the country. Each participant in the information exchange uses an interoperable credential issued by his employer to log into the information-sharing portal. The portal automatically directs responders to information relevant to them based on their duties and affiliated organization. Joel, a doctor, logs in and sees the triage report with injury lists at each of the local emergency shelters. The hospital where he is a resident acts as the attribute provider to verify his status as a doctor and his specialty. The portal indicates that his specialty is in high demand at a center half a mile away, where there is a long waiting time for care. In addition, Joel accesses an application on his registered cell phone to track changing local conditions. It warns him that two bridges in his area have recently been reported as unsafe and one intersection should be avoided. Joel uses this information to safely navigate to the center where he can be authenticated as a licensed specialist and can most help the victims of the emergency.”

Security is a wonderful thing, as is technology. But a good security approach is one that understands that no security approach is safe and that multiple checks and balances must always be in place. Compassion is great, but triple redundancy is better.


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Why Did Gonzales Hackers Like European Cards So Much Better?

I am still unclear about the core point here-- why higher value of European cards. Supply and demand, yes, makes sense. But the fact that the cards were chip and pin (EMV) should make them less valuable because that demonstrably reduces the ability to use them fraudulently. Did the author mean that the chip and pin cards could be used in a country where EMV is not implemented--the US--and this mis-match make it easier to us them since the issuing banks may not have as robust anti-fraud controls as non-EMV banks because they assumed EMV would do the fraud prevention for them Read more...
Two possible reasons that I can think of and have seen in the past - 1) Cards issued by European banks when used online cross border don't usually support AVS checks. So, when a European card is used with a billing address that's in the US, an ecom merchant wouldn't necessarily know that the shipping zip code doesn't match the billing code. 2) Also, in offline chip countries the card determines whether or not a transaction is approved, not the issuer. In my experience, European issuers haven't developed the same checks on authorization requests as US issuers. So, these cards might be more valuable because they are more likely to get approved. Read more...
A smart card slot in terminals doesn't mean there is a reader or that the reader is activated. Then, activated reader or not, the U.S. processors don't have apps certified or ready to load into those terminals to accept and process smart card transactions just yet. Don't get your card(t) before the terminal (horse). Read more...
The marketplace does speak. More fraud capacity translates to higher value for the stolen data. Because nearly 100% of all US transactions are authorized online in real time, we have less fraud regardless of whether the card is Magstripe only or chip and PIn. Hence, $10 prices for US cards vs $25 for the European counterparts. Read more...
@David True. The European cards have both an EMV chip AND a mag stripe. Europeans may generally use the chip for their transactions, but the insecure stripe remains vulnerable to skimming, whether it be from a false front on an ATM or a dishonest waiter with a handheld skimmer. If their stripe is skimmed, the track data can still be cloned and used fraudulently in the United States. If European banks only detect fraud from 9-5 GMT, that might explain why American criminals prefer them over American bank issued cards, who have fraud detection in place 24x7. Read more...

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