Security Firm Offers All-in-one Cybercrime Reporting Page as Small and Mid-Size Businesses Face Increased Security Threats During Holiday Shopping Season

Toronto, November, 07, 2007 According to Toronto-based security firm Informatica Research, a combination of factors contributes to the vast increase in security threats facing consumers and businesses during the holiday season. With an estimated 15% more people conducting a large part of their business online, the sheer volume of e-commerce traffic is the key driver in he ever-increasing number of security attacks. On the other hand, retail stores are often easy prey for fraudsters who take advantage of lax in-store security practices and staff unaware of security breaches.

Informatica’s president, Claudiu Popa, sees the trend stabilizing between the online and off-line worlds: “Increased competition, more convenient access to goods/services and fewer barriers to commerce are an ideal combination for malicious hackers and thieves everywhere. We are seeing some of the most brazen financially motivated attacks during the holiday season simply because everyone is so busy and best practices can often fall by the wayside”.

According to the company’s research, specific factors that increase the risk are often present in the e-commerce and the bricks-and-mortar worlds. According to Claudiu Popa, three of the top 5 reasons are a lack of applied security practices, such as those enforced by the credit card industry’s PCI standard, employee training and awareness and finally, the proper use of secure technology. “The unfortunate situation is that companies fail to adopt simple practices such as conducting proper self-assessments or enlisting the help of experts to help prevent and detect risky situations. On the personnel side we clearly see that management often underestimates the critical importance of employee awareness and accountability sometimes even leading to insider security breaches and business interruptions. On the technology side, point-of-sale terminals in stores as well as insecure transactional processing Web pages are often exploited by malicious parties for financial gain. These are critical practices that must be put in place by any responsible business if they want to protect their clients’ information as well as their own image”.

For individuals and companies seeking to report cybercrime, Informatica freely provides a comprehensive list of options at http://www.informaticasecurity.com/press/2007/reporting_cybercrime.html. Informatica Research’s parent company, Informatica Corporation offers solutions that assist small and mid-size businesses in bulletproofing their practices for online and off-line commerce. Services include low-impact, standards-based solutions designed to preserve productivity and efficiency, security awareness for employees and audit preparation for PCI compliance, PIPEDA privacy, Sarbanes-Oxley and Bill 198.
The company also offers the acclaimed Verify™ security assessments (www.SecurityAssessments.ca), employee security awareness certification and the industry’s most complete suite of security and privacy solutions aimed at small and mid-size enterprises.

For media enquiries and security solutions contact:

Claudiu Popa, CISSP, PMP, CISA
President & CSO, Informatica Corporation
416-431-9012 Info@InformaticaSecurity.com

CO: Informatica Corporation Information Security/Risk Management
ST: Ontario
IN: HTS
SU: