2015: When Jeeps Were Hacked, Medical Records Stolen And Passwords Were Killed

2015 was the year when two epic data breaches wiped off the health records of 80 million people and personal data of 22 million people, including federal employees and contractors. 2015 was also the year when we learned that cars and toasters can be hacked remotely, that EMV is a reality in the U.S. and that passwords are dying. The PYMNTS Digital Identity TrackerTM, powered by Oberthur, recaps the year, 89 companies that play in the space, and includes the perspective of Oberthur President/North America, Martin Ferenczi for what 2015’s developments could mean for the world of cybersecurity and data protection in 2016.

The Year In Highlights

Regulation: An important step toward thwarting cyberattacks was President Obama’s signing of the Executive Order on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection, which encourages sharing cybersecurity threat information and provided a framework for how businesses can optimize their cybersecurity investments.

EMV and Payments: One of the most significant stories of the year was the migration to EMV or chip cards in the U.S., which promises a significant uptick in card protection at the physical point of sale by being better able to authenticate the consumer when a card is presented.

Killing Passwords Slowly: The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) embraced the FIDO Alliance (Fast IDentity Online) specifications and committed to working to make secure multi-factor authentication a ‘built-in’ feature on all browsers and platforms to help move authentication beyond passwords.

Faster, Secure Payments Ensured: The Federal Reserve set up the Faster Payments Initiative to implement a safe, ubiquitous, faster payments capability and the Secure Payments Task Force to identify focus areas for making the payment system faster – but still safe.

December Tracker Updates

This issue of the Digital Identity Tracker also includes the profiles of 89 industry players, with 6 new profiles — Allweb Technologies, BioCatch, CyberExtruder, Heartland Payment Systems, Ping Identity and Sequent— and two updated companies: Ethoca and Giesecke & Devrient.

To download the December Digital Identity Tracker, click here.