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T
S
Hackers Attack Retail Sites
er attacks against retail sites fi rst half of the year, to an average of 34,000
soared in the last half of 2008, ris- for the last fi ve months, spiking at 137,000 in
CURREN
H
ack
ing by 161 percent during the July to November, SecureWorks said. The data is
November period, compared with the fi rst six based on 36 large U.S. retailers served by
months of the year, according to security fi rm, SecureWorks. All the attacks were blocked,
SecureWorks. After a big increase in network SecureWorks said.
scanning reconnaissance attacks in Octo- The fi rm called attention to a big increase
ber, hackers dramatically increased efforts this summer in attacks aimed at Microsoft
to fraudulently authenticate themselves to SQL Server, a back end database technology
online merchants, the fi rm said. used by many retailers, according to Secure-
The authentication exploits include Works. The hackers initiated thousands of
attempts to determine consumers’ user name what are known as SQL injection attacks that
and password combinations, which allow attempt to inject a malicious code into a target
criminals to make fraudulent purchases. “It computer that could, for example, copy all the
is not surprising that the attempts to steal customer information in a database and send
customer credentials greatly increased just it back to the hacker.
before the holiday shopping season,” said Other types of fraud threats against online
Wayne Haber, director of architecture at retailers are also increasing, according to
SecureWorks. “The November authentication Retail Decisions, a payment card issuer and
attacks also followed a signifi cant increase specialist in card fraud and payment process-
in network scanning in October, where we ing. The company says its client retailers reg-
blocked 202,000 network scans per client.” istered a 40 percent increase in attempted
Network scans, in which hackers seek to online fraud on the day after Thanksgiving.
fi nd vulnerabilities in a retailer’s computer The average value of an attempted fraud
infrastructure, increased from an average of was $248, which is 25 percent higher than
56,000 per client per month, from January to a year ago. world
June, to 90,000 monthly from July through
November. Authentication attacks increased
This article was edited from a story
from an average of 6,000 per month in the
on
InternetRetailer.com.
T
S
Survey: Independent
Retailers Best at Christmas
CURREN
A
ccording to a Christmas retailing That’s bad news, but not as bad as for
survey by the Institute for Local Barnes & Noble, down 7.7 percent; Best Buy,
Self-Reliance, independent retailers down 6.5 percent; Borders, down 14 percent;
fared better—relatively speaking—than chain J.C. Penney, down 8.1 percent; Macy’s, down
stores during the 2008 holidays. 7.5 percent; The Gap, down 14 percent; and
The survey of 1,142 independent retailers, Williams-Sonoma, down 24.2 percent.
selling everything from books, toys to clothing, Overall, the Commerce Department says
found that independent retail store sales were sales were down a record 9.8 percent in
down fi ve percent this Christmas season. December over December 2007. world
Find this story in our complete article archive at:
www.wholesalecentral.com/Wholesale-News
18 February 2009
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