This content was created by Robert Siciliano. This content was uploaded by Robert Siciliano. This is a YouTube news/interview segment titled "Jimmy Johns and Home depot hacked and Apple Pay Security" (posted April 1, 2015). The clip is an English live interview from Boston featuring two hosts/interviewers (labeled SPEAKER A and SPEAKER B) and Robert Siciliano, an identity-theft expert with Hotspot Shield. They discuss a reported Jimmy John's credit-card data breach affecting dozens of stores, broader retail payment fraud, recommendations (checking statements, transaction alerts, antivirus, use of encrypted Wi‑Fi/Hotspot Shield), and the security benefits of chip-and-PIN and Apple Pay/NFC.
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Jimmy John's is the latest big company to become the target of hackers.
Yeah, the national sandwich chain says about 216 stores appear to be affected. 23 of those locations are in Illinois, 16 in the Chicago area including 4 in the city itself, and another 2 in Northwest Indiana. The company says it appears an intruder stole logon credentials from Jimmy John's and used them to access credit card information between June 16th September 5th.
Yeah, here to talk more of it now about securing your personal information is Robert Siciliano, live from Boston. He's an identity theft expert with the company Hotspot Shield. Robert, good to have you joining us today.
Hey, Robert.
Hey, what's your advice for those who've, uh, shopped, bought a sandwich at Jimmy John's in the past few months?
Yeah, you got to check your credit card statements. Uh, this is, um, the real deal when, uh, hackers are hitting all these major retailers in such a concentrated period of time. You gotta know that, um, they see that the gold rush for credit card fraud is almost over, which means that within the next year or two, uh, we're gonna start securing our credit cards in a way that involves something called chip and PIN, which is an upgraded form of credit card technology that will, in many cases, render, uh, this type of data useless to the thief.
Yeah, because to be honest, um, people use credit cards for everything. Nobody carries cash anymore, so I feel like we sound like broken records saying, "Check your bank statement." check your credit card statements. You know, you use a credit card in a taxi, so how do we get around this? This chip-and-PIN technology sounds critical.
Yeah, this chip-and-PIN technology is way past its due date. It should have been implemented at least 5 years ago at this point. I use my credit cards for everything as well, but what I do, you know, as far as checking my statements go, yes, I do that. I might check them every couple of weeks online, But what's even better is to log in to your bank or credit card company's website right now, and you want to set up notifications or alerts, which means that you will get text messages and/or email messages every time a charge is made. This way you are fully in tune with every single charge that's being made to your cards right now.
That sounds like it would load your email though, with a lot of emails. Taxi transaction, every single charge?
Well, yeah. Is that where we're at? So this way you're at least fully aware of all that goes on regarding your card transactions. I mean, if you are transacting hundreds and hundreds of charges every month, I guess this could be a little more work. So you might not wanna do that depending on your level of risk. I do it, I don't see it to be much of a burden, and it keeps me very in tune with every single charge that goes on.
Maybe good advice, but let me ask you this. If you're shopping at Home Depot or Target, you might have to use a credit card 'cause you're spending $100, $200 possibly, but is it really worth it to use plastic to pay for a $7 sandwich?
That's a good question. I use my credit card for every single charge. You know, I get all kinds of frequent flyer miles as a result of using my credit card for these different charges. So for me, you know, I have a motivation for that, and it works out. I check my statements rather frequently, and I haven't had any fraudulent charges in quite some time. So all that being said, with all of these different data breaches that are occurring, you know, if you are monitoring your statements, the chances of the bad guys getting access to your specific credit card as a result of these millions and millions of accounts that have been compromised is really slim, actually. But regardless, you still check your statements. You make sure with your own devices you have updated antivirus, anti-spyware, anti-phishing, and a firewall. If you're using a free wireless connection to the internet, you know, I work with Hotspot Shield. That protects and encrypts all of your wireless data. So if you do all these different things, generally you should be in pretty good shape.
Robert, before we let you go, I wanna ask you about the Apple Wallet, that basically the digital wallet to pay for stuff. What do you think about this? How do you think it's going to work? Is this— going to be more dangerous for us?
Is it secure? Yeah.
Yeah, I love it. I think it's great. I think it should have been around 5 years ago. Apple Pay uses something called near-field communications technology. In the way that Apple does it, they encrypt all communications, all transactions, so that your data can't be readily sniffed out. Right now, with credit cards, your data is in what is called plain text, which bad guys can see it very easily. With Apple Pay, that won't be the case. I look forward to it.
All right, Robert Siciliano, thank you for making time for us. Great job.
