The Security Blotter

Breaches, scams and other recent incidents of note

By Kathleen Carr

August 01, 2005 — CSO — London hit by terror blasts. As G8 economic summit leaders gathered in Scotland, terrorists rocked London with at least six bomb blasts that targeted commuters during rush hour on July 7. The explosions, which occurred at about 9 a.m. at three Underground stations and on a double-decker bus, killed more than 50 and injured hundreds of people, The Times of London reported in the hours after the blasts. British authorities said July 13 that investigators believe four suicide bombers, British Muslims, carried out the attacks, The New York Times reported.

Breach exposes 40 million credit card accounts. MasterCard said a security breach at a company that processes credit card transactions had compromised as many as 40 million credit card accounts. The processing company, CardSystems, acknowledged on June 19 that it had violated rules established by Visa and MasterCard that prohibited CardSystems from retaining sensitive data including names, account numbers, expiration dates and security codes after processing a transaction, The New York Times reported. The breach came to light June 17 when MasterCard said that a rogue computer program able to extract data from CardSystems' computers was discovered.

BJ's settles case with FTC over customer data security. BJ's Wholesale Club has agreed to implement a comprehensive data-security system and undergo biannual security audits by a third-party security professional for the next 20 years, under a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission. Computerworld reported that the settlement came after the government investigated a case in which thieves stole thousands of customers' credit card numbers from BJ's systems and used the information to make fraudulent purchases in other stores.

Bush names head of new counterterrorism center. President Bush nominated retired Vice Adm. John Redd to be director of the new National Counterterrorism Center in McLean, Va., the country's primary agency for analyzing terrorist threats and planning counterterrorism operations at home and abroad, The Washington Post reported. Redd was executive director of the Silberman-Robb Presidential Commission on U.S. Intelligence in Iraq. In March, that commission reported, among other things, that intelligence failures leading up to the war showed that the U.S. intelligence community needed to be dramatically reorganized, and that the creation of the position of national intelligence director did not go far enough.

Bush wants Patriot Act provisions made permanent. Passed 45 days after 9/11, some provisions in the Patriot Act are set to expire in December. Congress is debating provisions such as the roving wiretap, which allows taps on any phone used by, or close to, the person being tapped (no matter who owns the phone), and secret searches of homes and businesses. President Bush said that such provisions have made America safer.

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