Albert Gonzalez

It’s hard not to be a little envious of the amazing technical skills and charismatic charm of Albert Gonzalez. Then again, I’m glad I haven’t done anything as crazy and super happy to not be serving a 20 year sentence. Albert and his friends were the ones behind the credit card theft for Dave & Busters, TJ Maxx, and Heartland Payment; All while being an undercover U.S. Secret Service informant.

Read all about it here: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/sex-drugs-and-the-biggest-cybercrime-of-all-time-20101111

What is the best take-away from reading this?

• Validate and sanitize your data inputs.
• Code review, code review, code review!
• Separate your payment card data and protect it with access controls and encryption.
• Monitor your network and critical hosts.
• Most importantly! Don’t trust all the people who work for you!