Three Madison Square Garden Hack Lessons To Shop Safe On Black Friday

Madison Square Garden has announced that it was the victim of a security breach that lasted nearly a year. As if that weren't bad enough, the breach affected five Madison Square Garden venues – four in New York City and one in Chicago. Considering how many people live in those cities and visit them each year, this has the potential to be a rather serious attack.

The four venues affected in New York City include Madison Square Garden, the Theater at Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall, and Beacon Theater. The affected location is Chicago is the Chicago Theatre. Now for the particularly scary part: Madison Square Garden says that cards swiped between November 9, 2015 and October 24, 2016 could be affected by this breach.

However, the company also says that this breach only affected swipes for merchandise or food and beverages. That means purchases made with credit cards through Madison Square Garden's box offices or Tickermaster weren't affected. If you're the type who won't stand for overpriced food and drink at the events Madison Square Garden hosts, that frugality may have saved you a lot of headache in this case.

Madison Square Garden blames the breach on "external unauthorized access" to its payment processing systems. Whoever gained access installed software that would eavesdrop on transactions and attempt to pull credit card data as it was being transmitted. It was alerted to the possibility of a breach and worked with security firms to close the vulnerabilities when the intrusion was detected in the final week of October.

Thought Madison Square Garden says that not all cards used to purchase food and merchandise were affected, this is still the latest story in a worrying trend of companies taking reactionary stances on security. With the holiday shopping season about to arrive in full force, you'll need to be vigilant with your information as you shop. Here are a few things you can do that will go a long way to keeping your information safe:

Services like Apple Pay and Android Pay aren't just a move to pull you deeper into their respective ecosystems – they're actually safer than credit card transactions in a lot of ways. Neither Apple Pay nor Android Pay actually transmit your card information when you use them during a transaction, making it much more difficult for unsavory folks to successfully eavesdrop on your purchase. More and more retailers are beginning to support both, so if you have the option, make good use of these services while you're out shopping.

If you have to pull out some cash, make sure to study the ATM you're using. There's always a chance that someone has outfitted the machine with a card skimmer meant to pull the information from your card's magnetic stripe, and they can be hard to spot at a glance. If anything about the machine seems shady, seek out another one, and try to make a point of only using machines in well-lit, populated areas.

There's been a major push in the US to adopt EMV cards – credit and debit cards that feature a computer chip. EMV cards are safer than traditional cards because they create a unique transaction ID each time you use it, which in turn makes it difficult to duplicate card information and use it successfully.

The problem is that there are still a few places that don't have their chip readers activated yet. Don't shop at these places, and instead make your purchases at locations that let you pay with chip and PIN. If you can eliminate swiping, you've already made major strides toward keeping your information protected.

Obviously, vigilance is key when it comes to protecting you information. Keep a close eye on your bank statements as we go through the holiday shopping season and immediately report anything that seems suspicious to your bank. If retailers and venues aren't going to take security seriously until after a major breach has occurred, then it's up to us to be proactive in preventing our information from being compromised.

SOURCE: Madison Square Garden