Malware attacks in Point-of-Sale has been there for a while but most interesting is that cyber-criminals have shifted from using targeted-attacking format to traditional mass-infection tools like spam, bot nets & exploit kits.
Note – In the article, We refers to Trend Micro
According to TrendLabs, attackers went after as many vulnerable PoS devices as possible in hopes of hitting the jackpot. They relied on tried-and-tested tactics like spamming as well as tools like macro malware, exploit kits, and bot nets. They must have done something right because the PoS malware detection volume grew 66% Q1-Q3. SMB’s, which had poorer protections in place compared with large enterprises, suffered most.
SMB’s proved lucrative and easy point-of-sale [PoS] malware attack targets this quarter. This could be due to the extensive customer databases they keep with minimal to non-existent security. We’ll likely see more of such attacks in the future. The slow adoption of next-generation payment technologies like the Europay, MasterCard, and Visa [EMV] and contact less Radio-Frequency-Identification [RFID] – enabled credit cards, mobile wallets (Apple Pay & Android Pay] and new payment-processing architectures could also adversely affect the security landscape.
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