Hacker Safe or False Sense of Security?

I’ll admit to being very skeptical about the Hacker Safe service for all the reasons laid out in this commentary. Now I’m even more skeptical. Recently, Geeks.com (which participates in the Hacker Safe program) acknowledged site compromise that led to the disclosure of visitors’ personal information – including their VISA credit card numbers. And while the news of the compromise was disturbing enough, the additional glimpse into how the Hacker Safe program operates was even more startling. According to a spokesperson for the Hacker Safe service, Geeks.com had fallen out of compliance with the program several times in the past year and during those periods had their certification withdrawn. Yet each time Geeks.com fixed the underlying vulnerabilities, the certification was regranted.

So the Hacker Safe logo can not only easily be a fake, even when it’s a legitimate logo it may not be any indication of site security. The full scoop is in this Computerworld article.