Malware's cousin, crimeware, can threaten payment processing security
Threats to payment processing security do not just come in the form of credit and debit card skimming or employee theft of cardholder data - certain types of internet-facilitated malware, called crimeware, can be extremely damaging to payment processing security, said a recent report.
According to IT security publication SC Magazine, crimeware - dubbed "an emerging sub-class of the more general malware" - consists of hackers directly "sniffing" payment processing data and then using it to "build more complex attacks, including silent, back-door account withdrawals or the creation of physical debit cards to perform ATM withdrawals."
The magazine notes that crimeware was the culprit of the recent RBS Worldpay and Heartland Payment Systems security breaches, which compromised 100 million payment cards in the Heartland breach and financial information from 1.5 million customers in the RBS breach.
