Avanti Markets Breach

The breach of Avanti Market’s PoS System –  which serves 1.6 million customers annually by providing 24-hour, self-service ‘break room’ marketplaces to corporate environments – NuData Security and STEALTHbits Technologies experts commented below.

Lisa Baergen, Marketing Director at NuData Security:

“Having physical biometrics stolen could have a serious impact on Avanti customers as credit cards, passwords and other information can be changed, but fingerprints cannot. Now that this information is in the hands of fraudsters and likely for resale on the dark web, it will be too easy to breach and take over more accounts, create synthetic identities and more.

Because of this, organizations need to rethink how they protect and verify the identity of their users in the digital world. We need to protect all consumer data and using advanced techniques like Passive Biometrics and Behavioral Analytics gives organizations a step up on the bad actors looking to monopolize this data – even if they have their hands on active biometrics such as fingerprints. Using a multi-layered approach of integrating device intelligence, active and passive biometric analysis and behavioral analytics is the key to truly understanding the user behind the device – which will effectively devalue the stolen identity data to any other person or entity.”

Jonathan Sander, CTO at STEALTHbits Technologies:

“It’s easy to blame IT admins when Malware is stealing data, but in cases like the Avanti Markets breach the IT folks may not have even known about the machines that got hit. Point of sale, for all the headlines it makes about security problems, still isn’t a big area of focus for the security pros in many organizations. The POS systems are often brought in from the outside, used by contract or part time employees, and even connected to networks that aren’t fully IT managed. They live in a gray zone that makes them both hard to manage and easy to target.”