What Can Retailers Do To Protect Our Credit Cards?
By KYW tech editor Ian Bush
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Just this week, Staples announced it's investigating an attack that may have exposed some customer credit and debit cards.
Add the office supply chain to the long list that includes Target and Home Depot and the question remains: why aren't retailers doing more to protect our personal information?
Banks and retailers largely have dragged their feet on the switch to the more secure chip-and-PIN cards. So nothing changes...
"The attacks will continue for any merchant that's vulnerable, because the attackers can make vast amounts of money from this," says Mark Bower with the data security company Voltage Security.
But Bower says stores can do something to keep what's on the magnetic strips of our cards out of hackers' hands:
"To effectively use what we call these secure card-reading devices."
From the moment your card is swiped, the information is encrypted -- protected from the checkout lane to the bank or other payment processor.
"So if any of those systems in between then get compromised by malware, insiders, and so on, they get nothing of value," explains Bower.
Nothing the criminal is able to counterfeit, so they move on the next target.
The cost to us? About an extra millisecond. For the retailer?
"It's far less than dealing with the outcome of a data breach," says Bower.