Page 8 - GS171202

ReadersSpeak

Account takeover, what should I do? Sasha,

understand that as a result of the Equifax breach, millions of us are under Massive data breaches that continue
threat of identity theft and account takeover ‒ possibly for the rest of our to occur have put all of us on edge.
lives since so much of our personally identifiable info was stolen. I'm There's no way to get sensitive data
I pretty familiar with identity theft but would like to know more about back once it's available for purchase
account takeover. How does it happen and how can individuals and small busi- on the Dark Web. However, we can
nesses prevent it? all take steps to protect ourselves and
our businesses. One is to strengthen
Sasha Ware laws and regulations pertaining to
Merchant Level Salesperson data security, as advocated by Patti
Murphy in "Data security should be
national priority," The Green Sheet,
Oct. 9, 2017, issue 17:10:01.

Another is to take commonsense steps
to protect ourselves, our customers
and partners. Numerous articles in
our archives, as well as elsewhere on
the web offer resources for this. One
resource geared for payment pros is
the SecurityMetrics Learning Center
at www.securitymetrics.com/learn. We
spotlighted it shortly after it went
live in 2015. See "Free online security
learning center," The Green Sheet,
Aug. 24, 2015, issue 15:08:02.

Account takeover, or account
compromise, occurs when a criminal
succeeds in accessing a valid user's
account and takes control of it
for malicious activity. This often
involves changing a user's password
to lock the user out or changing the
user's email address so he or she
receives no further communication
about the account. We located a
free ebook devoted specifically to
account takeover: Complete Guide
to Preventing Account Takeover
published by sift science. You can
request it here: https://siftscience.
com/landing/ato-ebook#ebook. After
you provide your name and email
address, you'll receive a link via
email where you can download the
book.

Editor
Farewell 2017

It's been quite a year in payments.
We'd like to know: What
developments have been beneficial
to you? What occurred that bugs
you? What are your hopes for 2018?
Let us know at greensheet@greensheet.
com.

8