Citibank Loses Millions Thanks to a Cyber Security Breach

Here is the part of the story that scares me, it is possible that these hackers hacked into a U.S. government agency (or two). Citigroup was quick to point out that it "had no breach of the system and there were no losses, no customer losses, no bank losses ... Any allegation that the FBI is working a case at Citigroup involving tens of millions of losses is just not true." This threat was discovered thanks to suspicious traffic from Internet addresses used by the Russian Business Network (a group that has sold hacking tools for accessing U.S. government systems).

The article goes on to highlight the fact that this breach was especially dangerous because the hackers could have toyed with the entire banking system, as hackers gaining entry to one bank could lead to plenty of other banks violated.

Cyber crime is now an epidemic, as losses to online crime totaled $260 million in the U.S. alone last year. That is a heck of a lot of security breaches, and that is a reason to be concerned when shopping online for this year's must-have Christmas gifts. In 2008, roughly 31% of all security breaches came in the retail sector, followed closely by the financial services sector. Think about it, I know that the two most common online activities in the Fightmaster household are shopping and checking the old bank account. I now know that we will be doing those a bit less.