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Humans have not been to the Moon in fifty years, but the space race is hotter than ever. In 2012, the Voyager 1 spacecraft left our Solar System with a copy of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. In 2020, a Chinese lunar rover explored what lies beneath the Moon’s surface with ground-penetrating radar. Last week, Russia tested an anti-satellite weapon, which created so much debris that astronauts aboard the International Space Station prepared for possible evacuation. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk hopes to send humans to Mars by 2024.

My Kingdom for a Horse!

In his play King Richard the Third, William Shakespeare wrote that the death of a single horse can bring down an entire kingdom. In 2018, hackers proved something similar in the world of cybercrime. By injecting a mere 22 lines of code into the supply chain of the British Airways website, the bad guys made off with 500,000 credit card numbers.

A recent report, The Privacy Paradox: Securing Data To Build Customer Engagement, developed in collaboration between PYMNTS and Very Good Security, found that while 85% of consumers are conducting more of their lives digitally, 87% refuse to do business with a company if they have doubts about the way the company handles their personal data.

There’s no doubt about it: Compliance and data security are expensive, time-consuming, and stressful. And there’s a reason for that.

Traditional methods don’t make it easy for companies to become compliant and protect user data. For crypto startups like Gem or leading marketing platforms like Fivestars, securing customer data security is mandatory – but it’s often cost-prohibitive and distracting.

The basics of card programs as well as how to solve the biggest challenges with the least amount of work, risk, and cost.

Virtual and debit are an essential part of every card program. From complex pricing and risk management to ensuring easy integration into your existing payment infrastructure, there’s a lot to get right when issuing cards.

Penetration Tests, an Introduction

When your business is online, the front door of your business is directly in front of every potential customer. Unfortunately, it’s just as easy for attackers, fraudsters, and anyone who wants to prey on you and your customers to be at your doorstep too. With carefully architected locks and controls, you can make sure that your door only opens for your customers.

Penetration tests, or pen tests, are a critical part of making sure your controls remain as strong as you think they are. Specifically, it is important that your pen tests are conducted by a skilled external firm. And this is true even if your organization has a competent internal security team – even in our case, with a competent and specialized internal security team to support our data security business.

The Challenge of Ransomware

The threat from ransomware, a type of malware that encrypts your files and holds them hostage for purposes of extortion, is currently rising. In 2020, there were 65,000 ransomware attacks reported in the United States. In the summer of 2021, two major ransomware attacks were even called threats to national security. Colonial Pipeline paid $5 Million in ransom after hackers successfully shut down part of its East Coast operations. JBS paid $11 million in ransom as cybercriminals disrupted its food supply operations to restaurants, grocery stores, and farmers.

VGS + WAF = <3

“VGS + Web Application Firewall: Part 1” discussed the need for enterprises to invest in a Web Application Firewall, or WAF, as part of a defense-in-depth security strategy. This follow-up blog explores where to position your WAF, specifically in relation to your VGS proxy, so it can best protect your applications and enterprise. The goal is to educate and empower you to secure your systems against the widest possible array of vulnerabilities and attacks.

Today, web applications, or “web apps” for short, dominate the business landscape. They gather, store, and process the sensitive personal and financial data of millions of Internet users. We now spend the majority of our computing time in the cloud, accessing online services and resources, from e-mail to e-commerce, via our browser.

Given the array of threats and vulnerabilities that persist in modern information technology, data security and privacy have become competitive differentiators in today’s marketplace. They provide foundational building blocks for successful and ethical business practices, and they increase customer trust and loyalty over time.

Let’s talk about Personally Identifiable Information (PII). According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), “If you collect it, you must protect it.” PII data breaches are defined as inappropriate disclosures, whether lost, stolen, or compromised, and whether the breach was intentional or accidental.