Pressure mounts for retailers to comply with payment card data security standard

[mandy]

For six years, credit card companies have been threatening retailers with fines and loss of credit card status if they don’t comply with the payment card industry data security standards. And retailers have been routinely ignoring them.

Now that might be changing. The card companies recently upped their fines to as much as $25,000 a month for large merchants who don’t comply with the standards. And high profile data breaches, such as the one that TJX Companies Inc. discovered in January, are raising consumers’ awareness that their payment data might not be secure—to the point that they might stop shopping at retailers where they perceive a threat...

full article: http://www.internetretailer.com/article.asp?id=21916

[mandy]

A related article:

I don’t need to recite the many security breaches that have led to major financial losses for companies over the past twelve months. Every business should already know the risks of leaving credit card and account information exposed. Basically, the risk is total loss of your business, and possibly your personal assets as well. And the risks, of course, come from many directions. If you process credit cards, your contract mandates PCI DSS compliance on an ongoing basis with huge penalties flowing from breaches. The Federal Trade Commission could pursue website contract and privacy policy violations, just about any state Attorney General could sue for violations of a state’s data security disclosure laws, enterprising lawyers could file class action lawsuits, and every customer could sue for damages. Data loss is just an ugly problem to have, often leading directly to economic ruin....

full article: http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articl...-Security/