August 22nd, 2007
Not Constantinople. Again!
I love it when cyber crime is linked however remotely to Istanbul. While there is absolutely no pattern here it is still fun to pile up all the incidents. I have written (my 24th post!) how I first learned of the criminal use of keystroke loggers to steal banking credentials in Istanbul. While I was at Webroot there was that bizarre coincidence that in one quarter the highest number of Trojan horses found where in Turkey! (You know, that’s where the ancient city of Troy was located and thus the coining of Trojan Horse as a term for ways to sneak inside defenses. And by the way, I was once accused by my editors at Gartner of using an Americanism when I included the metaphor of an Achilles Heel in a presentation I was giving at Cannes. I gleefully informed them that that particular metaphor would probably be understood by the citizens of a country who had named their capital after the guy, Paris, who shot Achilles ( the mastermind of the Trojan Horse) in his heel. Sorry, I digress…)
Anyway, authorities have just tracked down and arrested some one who has been trafficking in stolen TJX credit cards. This Ukrainian man was arrested in a nightclub in Istanbul which the journalist thinks is strange but I say is no more strange than luring a hacker to New York city and arresting him under the Brooklyn Bridge!
The ripples from the TJX incident continue to spread. This week TJX took a big hit to their earnings as they set aside reserves to cover costs from the incident.
TJX Cos.’ fiscal second-quarter earnings fell 57%, due to a charge of $118 million related to the theft of credit-card data from a Marshall’s store, of which $11 million was for costs incurred in the quarter and $107 million was a reserve for its exposure to potential losses.
Richard Stiennon is an industry consultant. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
