Retail data breaches threaten customer loyalty

[Batu69]

 

A high percentage of Americans would change their shopping habits if their favorite retailer was hit by a data breach according to a new study.

 

Data security specialist Vormetric commissioned the survey over 1000 US adults from Wakefield Research which found that for 85 percent of respondents the significant personal consequences that can result from a breach would cause them to find a new place to shop.

 

Factors that would cause them to take their business elsewhere are, if money was taken from their checking account (67 percent), unauthorized charges appearing on their credit card (62 percent), leakage of personal information (57 percent), and damage to their credit score (54 percent).

 

"It's been two years since major retail attacks made 'data breach' a household word", says Tina Stewart, VP of marketing at Vormetric. "The revelation of a major data breach following the Black Friday weekend in 2013 was the starting point for two record years of data breaches that have followed. Events since then have demonstrated just how much financial and reputational havoc a data breach incident can wreak on beloved brands".

 

The results underline the fact that retailers need to take security seriously or risk losing their customers. Protecting data by meeting minimum compliance requirements is no longer sufficient to guard sensitive data. Many recent retail breaches have occurred at organizations that were certified compliant with highly ranked standards like PCI-DSS.

 

"The time has come for retailers -- and indeed all organizations -- to embrace a data-centric mindset and change their approach to how their data is protected", says Sol Cates, CSO at Vormetric. "With attackers now using multi-phase approaches to breach organization's perimeters and networks, a stronger focus on better securing company data where it is stored is required. Encryption and access controls are now front-line defenses for defending data at rest. With encryption becoming increasingly easier to implement, there is no excuse for not protecting your organization’s sensitive data, regardless of where it resides".

 

More information on how retailers can protect themselves is available in the 2015 Insider Threat Report on Vormetric's website.

 

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[straycat19]

I was burned twice because two retailers were hacked and my credit card data stolen and used.  Though it didn't cost me anything but the time to call the credit card company it was a pain in the ass.  Needless to say i have never done business with either company again and will not do any business online unless I can use paypal.  I do not give my credit card number to anyone, don't even keep it on me, it is in a safe deposit box in the bank.  When I go shopping I pay in cash, no credit or debit card.  When I need cash I use my ATM card to get as much as I need from my account.  (You ought to have seen the look on the salesman's face when I bought my new 4 x 4 truck and plopped the entire purchase price on his desk in $20 and $50 bills!)

 

On the other hand my father-in-law never had $1 on him. He was a contractor in California and built the 3d tallest bridge in the world at that time.  He carried his credit card and if he wanted a cup of coffee it went on the card.  He walked in to a Cadillac dealership one day to buy a new car, picked out the one he wanted and plopped down his card.  They refused to take it.  So he went down to the Mercedes dealer and bought a Mercedes, they were happy to take his card.  Then he drove back to the Cadillac dealer and showed him his charge receipt and gave him a few choice words.  He died a couple years ago, but his card was never hacked and that is one card they would have loved to have hacked since the limit on it was outrageous.

[Holmes]

You need a study to figure out that customers are going to takke there business elsewhere if a retail store they shopped at got breached?  They wouldntr take there business elsewhere they would just visit the website of the retail store or call them and ask if there information is safe and shop somewhere else temporarily for the time bing.