Astounding News

I. A truly remarkable report by "60 Minutes' last night (11/25) revealed that a customer is considerably safer buying merchandise on line than they are in buying with a credit card at a local store. Most store retailers are employing a security system full of flaws and easily broken into!

NEWS BRIEF: "Hi-Tech Heist: How Hi-Tech Thieves Stole Millions Of Customer Financial Records", CBS News, November 25, 2007

" "Do you think twice when typing in your credit card number online, but have no problem handing over your plastic card at a store? Well actually, you may have it backward. Your personal information may be more secure in cyberspace than at the mall down the road. That's because it's easier for dot-coms to protect the data. And most stores in America underestimate how vulnerable they are."

Customers are very concerned that their credit card information can be compromised and stolen if they purchase online. Cutting Edge employs a most secure system which has never been hacked into in these past 5 years. Additionally, we employ now an automated order processing system which automatically processes each order to the bank and we never see the credit card information nor any personal passwords; therefore, if a hacker were actually able to penetrate our Shopping Cart, they would not find the information they need to steal your credit card and your identity.

Now, let us return to this most interesting report.

"As correspondent Lesley Stahl reports, it's becoming a big problem. The retail industry got a wake-up call earlier this year, when TJX, the parent company of T.J. Maxx and Marshalls, disclosed it had suffered the worst high-tech heist in shopping history. Hackers raided the company's computer system, taking off with tens of millions of records. And what we have learned is: TJX could have prevented it. They collected too much personal information. They kept it too long. And finally, they didn't keep it according to appropriate security standards', says Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart."

As this next segment reveals, much of the vulnerability is the result of the wireless system the retail stores are using to handle their transactions.

"This was a case of penetrating the network from without the stores because it is…a wireless network. You can then capture the wireless transmissions if they're not sufficiently encrypted," Stoddart says. When you swipe your credit card, your data is often transmitted through a wireless router either to a bank for approval or to the store's main computer. But the signal carrying your information bleeds easily through the walls ... Stahl got her first lesson in something called "war driving" from Kris Harms, a computer forensic investigator for Mandiant, a computer security company, who showed her how hackers, outside in a van, can grab the stores' wireless data.

"So you and I are in this parking lot, and we park in front of one of these big stores. We can just pluck it, is what you're saying, right through the wall," Stahl remarked.

" 'Absolutely', Harms replied."

"All you need, he says, is a regular computer; the software he got for free. Within moments, Stahl and Harms started getting results."

" 'Right now, we're right in front of Best Buy', Stahl remarked.

" 'Right so, Best Buy has a wireless network', Harms explained.

"The computer identified which stores have wireless signals. Some stores hide their identities, others don't. Besides Best Buy, Staples popped up, and Home Depot -- with its signature color -- wasn't hard to identify either."

" 'It doesn't say Home Depot, but it says 'Orange,' Stahl noted. "

Wireless transmissions can be encrypted, but too many retailers refuse to upgrade to it because the upgrade is expensive. The result is that you are highly at risk whenever you buy anything in a lot of the most popular retailers in America. You can avoid all this vulnerability by buying online. With online retailing already poised for a big increase this year, this '60 Minutes' documentary might spur even more people to order online rather than through the traditional store.

Kay