Following a number of recent, high-profile
data breaches affecting a wide range of different companies, the federal government is being more vigilant in making sure others are protecting sensitive information.
One business that recently fell under the watchful eye of regulators is Fidelity National Information Systems, which helps about 14,000 financial institutions process transactions and track accounts, according to a report from the
Wall Street Journal. It is the largest such third-party service provider in the nation, and these companies are regularly targeted by hackers trying to gain access to sensitive consumer information. The concerns these types of companies face are often different from those for Visa and MasterCard, because they do not have the same data security standards.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation sent FIS a letter earlier this year, which outlined the various security concerns the company faces, which were discovered in a thorough investigation by the FDIC, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the report said. This came as the result of a
data breach suffered by FIS that resulted in at least $12.7 million worth of fraud. To mitigate the concerns outlined in the letter, FIS has hired three executives to deal with ongoing security concerns, but is still alerting customers to the progress it finds in addressing those issues.
"FIS recognizes the need to be continually vigilant and proactive on information security," the company said told the newspaper. "FIS will continue to invest in and deploy state-of-the-art security solutions designed to ensure that its systems and networks and that its clients' data and financial information - and that of their customers - is safe."
In particular, the regulators' letter to FIS said that the company should immediately work to correct eight separate problems it faces, because previous actions it had taken to do so fell short, the report said. In particular, the regulators said those efforts were "insufficient to address regulatory concerns or identify the root causes of the weaknesses discovered." This included the company's supervision of
risk management and information security.
Ondrej Krehel, chief information security officer for
Identity Theft 911, writes on his blog about data breach concerns companies face, and how they can affect consumers as well.
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