Released on: November 5, 2007, 6:13 pm

Press Release Author: Informatica Corporation

Industry:

Press Release Summary: Online retailers and small e-businesses face 300% higher
security and privacy risks during the busy holiday season, but they're not the only
ones. Bricks and mortar vendors are also at increased risk of financial fraud due to
improper technology, lax standards and inadequate awareness.

Press Release Body: Toronto, November, 07, 2007 /PR/ According to Toronto-based
security firm Informatica Research, a combination of factors contributes to the vast
increase in security threats facing consumers and businesses during the holiday
season. With an estimated 15% more people conducting a large part of their business
online, the sheer volume of e-commerce traffic is the key driver in he
ever-increasing number of security attacks. On the other hand, retail stores are
often easy prey for fraudsters who take advantage of lax in-store security practices
and staff unaware of security breaches.

Informatica's president, Claudiu Popa, sees the trend stabilizing between the online
and off-line worlds: "Increased competition, more convenient access to
goods/services and fewer barriers to commerce are an ideal combination for malicious
hackers and thieves everywhere. We are seeing some of the most brazen financially
motivated attacks during the holiday season simply because everyone is so busy and
best practices can often fall by the wayside".

According to the company's research, specific factors that increase the risk are
often present in the e-commerce and the bricks-and-mortar worlds. According to
Claudiu Popa, three of the top 5 reasons are a lack of applied security practices,
such as those enforced by the credit card industry's PCI standard, employee training
and awareness and finally, the proper use of secure technology. "The unfortunate
situation is that companies fail to adopt simple practices such as conducting proper
self-assessments or enlisting the help of experts to help prevent and detect risky
situations. On the personnel side we clearly see that management often
underestimates the critical importance of employee awareness and accountability
sometimes even leading to insider security breaches and business interruptions. On
the technology side, point-of-sale terminals in stores as well as insecure
transactional processing Web pages are often exploited by malicious parties for
financial gain. These are critical practices that must be put in place by any
responsible business if they want to protect their clients' information as well as
their own image".

For individuals and companies seeking to report cybercrime, Informatica freely
provides a comprehensive list of options at
http://www.informaticasecurity.com/press/2007/reporting_cybercrime.html. Informatica
Research's parent company, Informatica Corporation offers solutions that assist
small and mid-size businesses in bulletproofing their practices for online and
off-line commerce. Services include low-impact, standards-based solutions designed
to preserve productivity and efficiency, security awareness for employees and audit
preparation for PCI compliance, PIPEDA privacy, Sarbanes-Oxley and Bill 198.
The company also offers the acclaimed VerifyT security assessments
(www.SecurityAssessments.ca), employee security awareness certification and the
industry's most complete suite of security and privacy solutions aimed at small and
mid-size enterprises.

For media enquiries and security solutions contact:

Claudiu Popa, CISSP, PMP, CISA
President & CSO, Informatica Corporation
416-431-9012 Info@InformaticaSecurity.com

CO: Informatica Corporation Information Security/Risk Management
ST: Ontario
IN: HTS
SU:


Web Site: http://www.informaticasecurity.com/

Contact Details: 67 Yonge St, M5E1J8
416-431-9012
pr@info-corp.com