IT Security Stories to Watch: Was Wendy's Breached?

Wendy’s (WEN) has begun investigating claims about a possible credit card breach at some of its restaurants.

And as a result, Wendy’s tops this week’s list of IT security newsmakers to watch, followed by Centene Corp (CNC), Gemalto and Panda Security.

What can managed service providers (MSPs) and their customers learn from these IT security newsmakers? Check out this week’s edition of IT security stories to watch to find out:

1. Wendy’s discovers possible credit card breach

Wendy’s has hired a security firm to investigate claims about a possible credit card breach at some of its locations. 

Krebs on Security reported Wendy’s last month began receiving reports about a potential breach from its payment industry contacts.

A Wendy’s spokesperson said it was too soon to determine whether the incident is contained, how long it may have persisted or how many restaurants may be affected.

“We began investigating immediately, and the period of time we’re looking at the incidents is late last year,” the spokesperson said. 

2. Centene begins internal search for missing hard drives

Centene has launched an internal search for six hard drives that are unaccounted for in its inventory of information technology (IT) assets.  

The healthcare provider noted the hard drives contained the names, addresses and other personal health information of approximately 950,000 patients. 

“Centene takes the privacy and security of our members’ information seriously,” Centene CEO Michael F. Neidorff said in a prepared statement. “While we don’t believe this information has been used inappropriately, out of abundance of caution and in transparency, we are disclosing an ongoing search for the hard drives. The drives were a part of a data project using laboratory results to improve the health outcomes of our members.”

3. Gemalto: 55% of IT security pros don’t know where their payment data is stored

A new Gemalto study showed 55 percent of IT security professionals do not know where their payment data is stored.

In addition, 54 percent of companies said they had suffered a breach involving payment data an average of four times in the past two years, but payment data security was not among the top five security concerns for these businesses.

“Payment data is at risk due to the new payment methods such as mobile payments, contactless payments and e-wallets,” Gemalto wrote in its study. “However, these new payment methods are difficult to implement because of authentication risk.”

4. PandaLabs: 2015 was record year for cyber attacks

Panda Security’s PandaLabs said last year “saw the greatest number of cyber attacks recorded around the world.”

PandaLabs pointed out there were 230,000 new malware samples produced daily over the course of the year as well, and this figure may continue to increase in 2016.

“We predict that the amount of malware created by cybercriminals will continue to grow,” Luis Corrons, PandaLabs’ technical director, said in a prepared statement. “We also can’t forget that the creation of millions of Trojans and other threats corresponds to the cybercriminals’ needs to infect as many users as possible in order to get more money.”

What are your thoughts on this week’s IT security stories to watch? Share your thoughts about this story in the Comments section below, via Twitter @dkobialka or email me at [email protected].