White Papers

Protect Your Cardholder File Transfers Against Data Breaches: Satisfying Payment Card Industry (PCI) Requirements

• Tags:
• accounts,
• credit,
• theft,
• card

Overview Identity theft and credit card crime are on the rise. Organizations today rely increasingly on open protocols and the Internet for business-to-business file transfers. Security attacks have become ever more sophisticated in targeting institutions for financial gain. "All sensitive electronic data needs to be protected, but enterprises should be aware that the low hanging fruit for the criminals is electronic card and checking account numbers, as well as user IDs and passwords for online financial accounts," said Avivah Litan, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. According to Gartner, unauthorized credit card charges increased fourfold from 2005 to 2006.

Identity theft is the crime of the 21st century. Results feature eroding consumer confidence and escalating costs that include liability and litigation. In its 2006 data security survey, Ponemon Institute, a leading research institute on privacy and data protection practices, estimated an average cost of $182 per lost customer record and an average total cost of $4.8 million per breach -- a 30% increase over 2005.

Consumer credit card information is an attractive target for criminals across the world. Selling fraudulently-obtained credit card information over the Internet is a growing business for the new breed of cyber criminals. While virus and phishing may obtain the credit card information of a few thousand cardholders, hacking into a single large retailer's database is a lot more lucrative, granting access to millions of cardholder accounts. A recent example is the security breach at TJX (parent company of TJ Maxx department stores) that compromised approximately 45 million cardholder accounts.

• 
• Did you find this white paper useful? 2 out of 6 users found this white paper useful

• Subscribe to the IT White Papers Newsletter
• White Paper RSS