Just as shoppers in the U.S. gear up for the holiday season, a cyber threat intelligence agency has warned that a sophisticated point-of-sale malware at a checkout terminal could become a major threat to retailers and shoppers.
Holiday sales are expected to constitute nearly one fifth of the retail industry's annual sales of $3.2 trillion. Usually, online retailers offer big deals on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving Day in the U.S.
However, companies like discount-store operator Target Corp. (
TGT ) and home improvement retailer Home Depot Inc. (
HD ) have been in the news over the last two years following massive data breaches as attackers pilfered credit card records from these companies' servers and point-of-sale or POS systems.
iSIGHT Partners, a cyber security company, has provided details about a "highly sophisticated criminal malware framework" that has been used to target POS systems at U.S.-based retailers.
The company noted that ModPOS, short for modular point-of-sale system, can go undetected by numerous types of modern security defenses.
