Heartland and Shadowlands

This is a follow-up up to my previous blog regarding the price of data loss. Heartland Payment Systems lost another 30% share value a few days ago (actually, 25th February, but it’s been a busy week!) – down to $5.34/share (at the beginning of 2009 – prior to the breach they were between $16-$18 per share). Also, their volume used to sit at an average of ~180K/day, on 1/22 the day after the press release – their volume soared to 4.7M and the following day 3.3M shares were traded. I can guarantee you they weren’t “buy” orders either.

With a current market cap of just over $200M, pending lawsuits, fines, etc. this is a very strong signal that companies need to implement effective security strategies – or risk being squeezed out of the market. As we stated previously, the data breach was caused by custom written malware – for which there would not be a signature.

You can call this the collateral damage of the attack or an EDoS – Economic Denial of Sustainability (or Survivability).

Jeff Debrosse CSA CC
Research Director, North America