What’s Old Is New Again—Insecure Remote Access

When a merchant is suspected of being the victim of an account data compromise event, they are often required by the card brands to hire a Payment Card Industry Forensic Investigator (PFI). The PFI provides a report on the investigation to the card brands, and if the investigation found evidence of a breach, the report explains how the attack was carried out. The card brands likely receive several hundred PFI reports each year, and they occasionally issue security alerts when they see an emerging threat pattern in PFI reports. Visa, which issued three alerts in the past year alone regarding memory scraping malware used against retailers, has only issued nine alerts since 2011 (Visa Security Alerts/Bulletins). So, it is advisable that merchants pay attention to these alerts.