Madison Square Garden Discloses Data Breach

Following the news that the Madison Square Garden Company that may have affected customers at five of its locations. The company, which operates the self-named arena in New York City along with other iconic locations including Radio City Music Hall and the Chicago Theater, believes that cyber criminals tapped into its payment system between Nov 2015 and Oct 2016. Although the company has declined to say how many people were impacted, it has revealed that credit card numbers, names and expiration dates were stolen. Ryan Wilk, Director of Customer Success at NuData Security Commented below.

Ryan Wilk, Director of Customer Success at NuData Security:

 “Another day, another hack. Even your pizza or beer can lead to a breach of your personal data as we saw with the recent Madison Square Garden breach. While they haven’t yet said how many people had been affected after buying, say, pizza, beer, or T-shirts, at these sites, they did reveal that the crooks nabbed payment card numbers, names, expiration dates, and internal verification codes from the cards.

“Any breaches of financial information are of extreme significance and concern. While breaches seem to be a daily occurrence these days, this breach goes to show the potential expanse of breaches everywhere! Even when you think you are out for a night on the town, the sports, entertainment, and cultural spaces are a potential target for hackers. With your personally identifiable information (PII) compromised, what victims of a breach may not always recognise is that every bit of information is coupled with details from other breaches and your social platforms to create more comprehensive identities that can be built and sold for a higher value to hackers. These ‘bundles’ contain much more complete, and increasingly dangerous information around specific individuals, meaning there are more opportunities for fraud to take place. For example, with enough data collected from separate breaches, a fraudster could gain access to financial and geographical information to fill out a loan application or apply for a new credit card.

“Fortunately, there is a means of stopping fraudsters from using their precious compiled data, before catastrophic damage can be done. Organisations at the forefront of protecting their brand and users are leveraging multi layered solutions that employ passive biometrics and behavioral analytics. The completely passive system is able to identify suspicious activity, potentially coming from a fraudster who has procured legitimate account credentials, and stop any deceitful transactions from taking place. Without the need to interrupt a user’s experience, behavioral analysis serves as a means of understanding how legitimate users truly act, thereby predicting and preventing fraud from occurring. Isn’t it time we should expect the organisations that hold our credentials safe to have the best solutions in place to protect our data.”