Could 5-Year-Old Bank Rules Have Prevented The Heartland Breach?
Written by Evan SchumanJanuary 29th, 2009
A financial blog is raising a fascinating question, asking if banking security rules from 2004 might have prevented the Heartland data breach, where cyber thieves hid a sniffer program in an unallocated portion of a Heartland transaction server.
The financial blog quoted a well-placed security consultant, who apparently had direct knowledge of one of the Heartland probes, saying: "This was an 'I told you so' moment for me. I know exactly which part of the process got hit. It was the un-encrypted Point-to-Point connection, which occurs between the Host Security Module (HSM) and the Application Security Module (ASM). But that means that they had to have had a hole in their firewall to insert the sniffer into unallocated disk space."
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I have strong reservations about the 'individual' certification and posting of that information for merchants. Can you imagine the potential employee poaching that might occur? The implications when competitors can look up how many are certified with each of their competitors? 
-Christine
