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Not downvoting, but the number of corporations storing credit card information would terrify you. Seen it at former jobs as a dba, helped to change that at som
by hobs 11y ago
Not downvoting, but the number of corporations storing credit card information would terrify you.
Seen it at former jobs as a dba, helped to change that at some, and its among the top ten list of things to check when I start at new one.
- Someone1234 11y agoIf they got caught doing that, both VISA and Mastercard will essentially ban them. At least if it is an insecure as you make it sound and they haven't met PCI DSS. So instead of storing known gotcha cards in these databases, a likely better solution would be to discontinue the use of these databases. Most major retailers don't store credit card numbers. The full information never leaves the terminal, and is discarded when the transaction is complete. PS - Thanks for "Not downvoting" but why would you anyway? Nothing I said contradicts anything you've said. I said large retailers aren't storing CC information. Are you claiming they do? If so, name names.
- S_A_P 11y agoAgreed, the downvote should be used for content you find inappropriate or adds nothing to the discussion. A dissenting opinion that is on topic should not be downvoted.
- oldmanjay 11y agoDownvoting to signal disagreement is allowed, and you can't stop it in practical terms anyway, so accepting that it is a thing is pretty useful.
- hibikir 11y agoWhile I do not want to name names, I have worked for a very large retailer that everyone in the US would know that stored credit card information for quite a long time. They are large enough to do large chunks of their credit card processing themselves, instead of having a third party processor. They even have their own set of cards that they process themselves. It might have changed in the last few years though. Either way, they did take PCI DSS seriously, and passed audits: dual control requirements for keys and all that. Still, accounting could print reports with many credit card numbers, although it was all logged and relatively well tracked. I have not worked in a lot of big retailers though, but I have seen others that featured searching for a missing receipt by credit cards number, or refunds to the original CC way past the window where a processor can just reverse a charge. There's also online retailers, that definitely remember your credit card number. So I suspect there are plenty of retailers that at least have historically kept CC numbers, whether being PCI compliant or not is another matter entirely.
- jeffasinger 11y agoStoring the a cryptographic hash of the credit card number would allow for searching for receipts by credit card number without storing the actual credit card number.
- javawizard 11y agoCredit card numbers aren't nearly long enough to prevent a brute force attack against anything of the nature.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Terr_ 11y agoI think it partly depends on how many customers the store has. If it's a mom-and-pop place with a salt on their hash, attackers would get much less "profit" out of their search. Anywho, just going to engage in some half-assed napkin-math to explore the idea: Card numbers: 6 digits for institution and 9 for the customer and 1 for checksum. Let's assume merely 20 big issuers "worth attacking". The possibility-space to search is then (20 * 9^10), or ~70 million. Suppose that--by design--it takes 2 seconds to compute the hash. Covering the whole range would take ~4420 years. That's... not a very comforting margin. Perhaps you could hash the credit-card along with the year-month in which the purchase occurred, but attackers probably aren't interested in >12 month old cards, so that's only a small 12x slowdown there.
- icebraining 11y agoAre card numbers perfectly random? I mean, excluding the industry/company identifier and the check digit?
- Terr_ 11y agoWhoops, it seems I kept editing without seeing your reply. Sorry, bad habit of mine. I don't know how random the customer-portion is, but I assume/hope it is. I put some napkin-math in, but AFACT javawizard's right about the basic issue. It might be a different story if the system required users to also enter in data like the exact customer first/last name.
- BillinghamJ 11y agoA lot of companies do store full card numbers. Not usually physical retail stores, but for online companies it's not /that/ unusual. Most do just tokenize with a third party processing company though.
- jeffmould 11y agoThere are plenty of small "mom & pop" sites out there that store full credit card info, in plain text, in unsecured databases, in blatant disregard of card company policies. They go with the thinking that it costs to much to implement security and nothing will ever happen to us. We hear about the big breaches on the news, but I would bet for every big breach we hear about on the news there are thousands of smaller breaches that don't get recognized. For example, about two years ago I had a property management company ask me to build out a site to handle rent payments for them. They wanted to store and have access to the full credit card numbers to manually process transactions for failed or late payments. When I told them they were not allowed to do that they terminated the contract with me. I know they went on to hire a developer to build out a site for them and store credit card numbers. While I don't know if they are still doing it, it did happen for an extensive period of time.
- washadjeffmad 11y agoThat was also the case for a number of ACH portal softwares sold alongside retail POS suites in the 2000s. Instead of temporary storage until batching, full transaction details were held permanently by default. At any time, anyone with access to a payment terminal who knew where to look could process transactions manually from these records. They could have double charged and skimmed, done reversals for a cut, or copied and sold customer profiles with CC numbers. These were BSA products marketed to small and medium sized businesses, so no one questioned compliance.
- sbov 11y agoI prefer to put consequences in terms of money. That said, on the flip side, because of things like "Dual Control" the PCI DSS is physically impossible for some small companies to abide by. In the past we dealt with credit cards and had a few audits, and they admitted that many of the points are aimed at companies that don't consist of just two people. Also, look at it from their POV. In a normal course of business a lot of these mom and pops probably already are storing credit card information on paper and/or in word documents. So you're saying the system you build for them is going to be, in some ways, less useful than their current ad-hoc system. My mom & pop tax guy emails me my tax return as an encrypted pdf, with the password being... the last 4 digits of my SSN.
- hobs 11y agoGetting a little offtopic, but regarding your PS: I dont know, I just often see someone assume that someone replying to them (when they are being downvoted by others) assume that the person has negative intent and is part of the downvoting spree. I would much rather engage in some discussion even if their opinion is honestly held than downvote someone I disagree with. If someone is a shill or not listening to reason on the other hand...
- klodolph 11y agoI've worked at shops that don't meet PCI DSS. It's a sticking point, and we WANT to comply, but also don't want to spend the money to comply, and the processor wants us to comply too, but they'd rather have our business than give us the boot for not meeting PCI DSS.
- the_ancient 11y agoYou seem to think VISA and Mastercard have the desire to reduce fraud, they dont. They have a desire to reduce their liability. PCI DSS is largely a marketing ploy, and way for them to shift liability from banks and the network to the merchants. As a security standard PCI DSS is terrible Further storing card numbers is not a violation of PCI-DSS, it would be impossible for them require that as reoccurring billing, auto-pay, etc have a requirement for the PAN to be stored. Look at Amazon, it stores my card number, in full, so I can checkout with out having to reenter it every time
- patmcc 11y ago~8 years ago, I worked at one of the largest retailers in North America (top 5). Credit card numbers were absolutely stored in logs accessible to me (an on-the-floor employee who processes returns, etc.). It was useful as I could use them to find purchases if someone lost their receipt but had the credit card. It was also incredibly insecure. I believe they've changed it since then, but it would not surprise me at all if other retailers were in the same boat.
- dibujante 11y agoThis would be a PCI violation, so if it's common, then someone has some calls to make. I'm a stickler about enforcing data retention (and non-retention) standards where I work. We never store any credit card information. That would be an outrageous liability.
- phonon 11y agoStoring the PAN is not a "PCI violation". It's not best practice, for sure, and you then have an obligation to secure your systems much more thoroughly, but you can do it. "Payment brand rules allow for the storage of primary account number (PAN), expiration date, cardholder name, and service code." https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/documents/SAQ_InstrGuidelines_v3-1.pdf https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/documents/SAQ_InstrGuid... (There are other types of data you can NEVER store (also described in the above document) like the CVV or PIN code, which is perhaps what you meant.)