Do you like to eat at Dickey's BBQ? 3,000,000 credit cards compromised.

Mainly in California and Arizona. Dickey's is a franchised operation, and as franchisees can choose their point of sale operation, it is most likely that a downstream credit card operator was compromised.

From the article, one of the consultants brought in said "The financial institutions we’ve been working with have already seen a significant amount of fraud related to these cards,” and "data indicated some 156 Dickey’s locations across 30 states likely had payment systems compromised by card-stealing malware, with the highest exposure in California and Arizona. Gemini puts the exposure window between July 2019 and August 2020.

Apparently with the emphasis in hardening systems against ransomware, people have been neglecting converting over to chip payment and the swiping of cards is notorious for being vulnerable to card theft.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/10/breach-at-dickeys-bbq-smokes-3m-cards/

Study shows Remdesivir ineffective against COVID-19

Joining the ranks of hydroxychloroquine, Remdesivir showed no reduction in outcomes or ventilator rates in people infected with COVID-19. Which is too bad, it would be nice to have more effective drugs against this virus. But anti-viral medication is tricky stuff, and we've only been fighting this particular bastard for ten months.

https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-remdesivir/who-study-says-remdesivir-did-not-reduce-mortality-in-covid-19-patients-ft-idINL4N2H63XG

A rant about credit card theft

What I really hate is the inconvenience for you and me. We have to worry - 'Hey, I ate at that place six months ago!' We have to compulsively check out accounts, we have to decide whether or not to do the credit monitoring (major PITB, especially if your credit history is damaged with incorrect information like mine), we have to go through the hassle of getting our cards cancelled and not being usable until replacements arrive.

The banks really don't care as long as the cash flows. THREE MILLION CREDIT CARDS. One of the security companies brought in to investigate and mitigate the situation said "I never thought in 2005 (or maybe he said 2015) that in 2020 I'd still be seeing magnetic stripe compromises."

But hey - we're the USA! WE'RE NUMBER ONE! In stolen credit cards.

There was nothing preventing these machines from being replaced when we had a booming economy, except MasterCard and Visa didn't push for it. Because? The gasoline retail industry didn't want to have to pay to upgrade all of those gas pumps.

THREE MILLION CREDIT CARDS.

I don't bother to post about a lot of credit card thefts because it just happens so damn often. It's only when there's several million cards or someone outrageously famous that gets clobbered. And now MC/V won't push for replacement terminals - or just fund it themselves - because the economy is going to be in the toilet for several more years to come and merchants won't be able to afford it. Which means there will be more of these thefts in the next 5-10 years.


I've had my banking information compromised precisely ONCE. And it wasn't by one of these credit card thefts. It was 10-11 years ago, I was in Phoenix for a couple of days before going to Las Vegas for a convention, I was checking my bank balance and found a charge for a gas station in one of the Carolinas for $85. I hadn't been there in something like 5 years, it was definitely hinky. Called the bank, they confirmed it was fraud and turned off my debit card.

But it wasn't a card or card processor that got hacked. It was a check processing facility that somehow got ahold of my account information. I have no idea how that happened.

My wife and I have had numerous card replacements, but have never had a dime misplaced. Several friends have been victimized, one lost money from the Target hack before it became public!

It's just so bloody frustrating. It could have been put to an end years ago, but Visa and Mastercard didn't do it. And it's just going to go on and on and on.


Oh, speaking of data breaches: you heard Barnes and Noble got clobbered, didn't you? Someone got in and made off with a bunch of info. "But no customer credit card information was stolen." Yeah, we'll see if that statement rings true in another month or so.


Sorry, I'm just in a bit of a pissy mood. Multiple government administrations have not made the industry fix things. The industry hasn't fixed things. So nothing gets fixed. And it will continue this way while the rest of the world looks on in wonder at yet another weird thing that Americans do.