Card Compromise Trends

Over the last couple of years it became imperative that all merchants who print, process, transmit or store credit card information must meet the requirements set forth by the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). When you hear about security breaches it is most often about the large corporations such as Heartland, TJX and others, however over 85% of breaches that occur are of smaller companies. The common misconception is that smaller companies feel that they would not be impacted because of their size of business and/or volume of sales. However, a hacker does not look for the size of company or the estimated amount of sales. Their only interest is the vulnerabilities to retrieve sensitive credit card data.

Over 1,000 breach events reported in 2008, resulting in over 285 million compromised records

Source: www.infosecurityanalysis.com
Source: Verizon Business Data Breach Report*

What to do if compromised: http://usa.visa.com/merchants/risk_management/cisp.html

• Forensics audit costs: $8,000 to $20,000
• Card replacement costs: generally between $3 and $10 per card
• Brand damage: Hard to quantify but at the end of the day, this could be the most damaging consequence to a business
• Compliance fines: Currently range from $5,000 to $250,000 depending on the size of the breach and the nature of the offense that led to the compromise

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