It 205 Week 5 Checkpoint

The credit card data theft at TXJ Companies is considered one of the worst ever. The case is significant because of a lack of appropriate security and control.

Resources: Chapters 7 & 12 of Essentials of Management Information Systems.

Answer the following questions in 200 to 300 words:

List and describe the security controls in place. Where are the weaknesses?

What tools and technologies could have been used to fix the weaknesses?

What was the business effect of TXJ’s data loss on TXJ, consumers, and banks?

Which moral dimensions may be applied in this situation? How?

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TXJ Companies had inadequate and under-maintained security systems in place. One example of this was at a St. Paul MN store in which TXJ was utilizing a wireless network without the proper encryption (WEP vs WPA) to ensure hackers were not able to access the system. While using such outdated coding, the store also did not set in place the proper firewalls on the network. And to compound matters even more, the security software that actually had been purchased hadn’t been properly installed. Simply correcting these oversights could have help in avoiding such a significant data theft scenario.

Such oversights allowed hackers to break into the network, create their own user accounts and essentially spy on the transactions that were made. When credit card or bank card transactions were made, the hackers were able to glean personal and bank information because the transactions were process and transmitted to the banks without the proper encryption.

After having stolen the information, this data was then criminally sold - over 200,000 credit card numbers used, resulting in fraud losses of over $75 million. These losses do not account for the numerous fines incurred by the merchants, the business losses of said merchants, and even the costs incurred by the consumers themselves. However, the banks have suffered the majority of the losses - an estimated $300 million to...