Cybersecurity Insurance Checklist - Meet Insurance Requirements with BeyondTrust PAM Download for Free

  • Partners
  • Support
  • Careers
  • English
    • Deutsch
    • français
    • español
    • 한국어
    • português
BeyondTrust
  • Products

    Privileged Password Management

    Discover, manage, audit, and monitor privileged accounts and credentials.

    • Password Safe
    • DevOps Secrets Safe
    • Privileged Access Discovery Application

    Endpoint Privilege Management

    Enforce least privilege across Windows, Mac, Linux, and Unix endpoints.

    • Windows and Mac
    • Unix and Linux
    • Active Directory Bridge

    Secure Remote Access

    Centrally manage remote access for service desks, vendors, and operators.

    • Remote Support
    • Privileged Remote Access
    • Privileged Access Discovery Application

    Cloud Security Management

    Automate the management of identities and assets across your multicloud footprint.

    • Cloud Privilege Broker

    BeyondInsight

    Experience the industry’s most innovative, comprehensive platform for privileged access management.

  • Solutions

    Use Cases

    • Cloud Security
    • Compliance
    • Cyber Insurance
    • Digital Transformation
    • Endpoint Security
    • Operational Technology
    • Ransomware
    • Service Desk Efficiency
    • Zero Trust

    Industry Applications

    • Financial Services
    • Government Agencies
    • Healthcare
    • Law Enforcement
    • Manufacturing
    • Schools & Universities

    Solutions

    The BeyondTrust Privileged Access Management portfolio is an integrated solution that provides visibility and control over all privileged accounts and users.

  • Resources

    Learn

    • Blog
    • Customer Stories
    • Competitor Comparisons
    • Datasheets
    • Demos
    • Glossary
    • Podcast
    • Whitepapers

    Attend

    • Events
    • Go Beyond
    • Training
    • Webinars

    Support

    • Changelog
    • Professional Services
    • Technical Documentation

    Universal Privilege Management

    Our innovative Universal Privilege Management approach secures every user, asset, and session across your entire enterprise.

  • Company
    • About
    • Leadership
    • Core Values
    • Partners
    • Careers
  • Watch Demo
  • Contact Sales

The Equifax Data Breach and PCI DSS: Let’s Be Blunt

September 8, 2017

  • Blog
  • Archive

blog-mirai-bot-5th-victim-1.jpg

Let’s be blunt: If you accept, store, process, or use credit card data in your business, you are subject to PCI DSS compliance requirements. This is true for all types of organizations, from retail to healthcare. Depending on the number of transactions you process and how you process electronic payment data, you are required to undergo ASV or QSA assessments to gauge how secure you are compared to PCI DSS standards. And you are required to sign off on the results, submit them, and remediate any pending findings in a timely fashion.

Recently, Verizon published a report indicating that organizations are more likely to be breached if they are not maintaining PCI DSS standards on at least a quarterly basis. While that seems obvious, many security professionals have refuted the claims in the report as biased to Verizon’s own services.

This brings me back to my point: I wonder what Equifax’s last assessment looked like? Were they compliant? Who audited them?

The Equifax data breach, as noted by CNBC, affected approximately 143 million U.S. consumers and included names, birthdates, credit card numbers (209,000 of the total lot), social security numbers, and potentially driver’s license numbers. The breach was discovered on July 29th, 2017 and the attackers “exploited a U.S. website application vulnerability to gain access to certain files.”

So, I’ll (bluntly) ask some honest questions:

  • Was the web application known, or was it a zero-day exploit? If it was known, how old was it and why wasn’t it remediated? If it was a zero-day, please educate the security community so we can protect our own websites!
  • PCI DSS requires File Integrity Monitoring (FIM). Were the sensitive files being monitored? Is that how Equifax discovered the breach? This implies monitoring only and no prevention.
  • How did Equifax determine the breach, and were the systems in question within PCI Scope? I certainly believe so, since credit card information was obtained and they appear from initial reports to be complete PANs.

These facts, and many more, are critical to understand what happened. I hope they come to light soon, and as with any larger breach involving payment card data, it remains to be seen what monetary and punitive damages Equifax will face from the PCI council.

BeyondTrust will be reviewing the facts in this breach as they become available and report back with any new developments.

Photograph of Morey J. Haber

Morey J. Haber, Chief Security Officer, BeyondTrust

Morey J. Haber is the Chief Security Officer at BeyondTrust. He has more than 25 years of IT industry experience and has authored three books: Privileged Attack Vectors, Asset Attack Vectors, and Identity Attack Vectors. He is a founding member of the industry group Transparency in Cyber, and in 2020 was elected to the Identity Defined Security Alliance (IDSA) Executive Advisory Board. Morey currently oversees BeyondTrust security and governance for corporate and cloud based solutions and regularly consults for global periodicals and media. He originally joined BeyondTrust in 2012 as a part of the eEye Digital Security acquisition where he served as a Product Owner and Solutions Engineer since 2004. Prior to eEye, he was Beta Development Manager for Computer Associates, Inc. He began his career as Reliability and Maintainability Engineer for a government contractor building flight and training simulators. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Stay Up To Date

Get the latest news, ideas, and tactics from BeyondTrust. You may unsubscribe at any time.

I agree to receive product related communications from BeyondTrust as detailed in the Privacy Policy, and I may manage my preferences or withdraw my consent at any time.

You May Also Be Interested In:

Whitepapers

Cybersecurity Insurance Checklist

Whitepapers

Microsoft Vulnerabilities Report 2021

Whitepapers

Privileged Access Management: PAM Checklist

Keep up with BeyondTrust

I agree to receive product related communications from BeyondTrust as detailed in the Privacy Policy, and I may manage my preferences or withdraw my consent at any time.

Customer Support
Contact Sales

Products

  • Endpoint Privilege Management
  • Password Management
  • Privileged Remote Access
  • DevOps Secrets Safe
  • Remote Support
  • Cloud Privilege Broker

Resources

  • Blog
  • Case Studies
  • Competitor Comparisons
  • Datasheets
  • Glossary
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Webcasts
  • Whitepapers

About

  • Company
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Events
  • Leadership Team
  • Partner Program
  • Press
BeyondTrust Logo
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Privacy
  • Security
  • Manage Cookies
  • WEEE Compliance

Copyright © 1999 — 2022 BeyondTrust Corporation. All rights reserved. Other trademarks identified on this page are owned by their respective owners. BeyondTrust Corporation is not a chartered bank or trust company, or depository institution. It is not authorized to accept deposits or trust accounts and is not licensed or regulated by any state or federal banking authority.