Blog: Dan E. Linstedt

« Can we get RFIDS for Data? | Main | EII and Unstructured Data - Blowout Party of the year! »

Personal Security and your information

I've blogged about this recently, the judge in SF who basically ruled that credit card companies don't have to be accountable for telling you if your information is stolen right? We'll here's the flip side to this story. Turns out CardSystems is having stock trouble, on-line card processing merchants have seen sales fall a couple percentage points since the breech.

Maybe they'll begin paying attention?

Check out these stories on e-week:

Visa USA Delays Plan to Cut Ties with CardSystems
CardSystems to Congress: We Face 'Imminent Extinction'
Major Card Vendors Stay Mum on Data Breach
Lawsuit Seeks Payback for Major Credit Card Breach

And on and on. The government can't agree on how to solve these problems, yet the justice system seems quite content on "letting these breaches slip on through". At least the credit card companies are stepping up to the plate, but is it too little to late?

Let's look at this another way: a small vendor (mom & pop shop) is breached, their credit card storage is stolen, and all the cards are erroneously charged. The owners of the cards report these bogus charges, and the credit card company says: Due to the number of chargebacks that the small vendor experiences, their account will be "immediately discontinued."

I don't see any waiting period or grace period for the small companies, why then does such a large company like "CardSystems" get a break of several months after the breach? Can you say double standard? This is absurd. They'll punish the little guys at the first sign of trouble, but the big-boys get a break??

Ok, so the mom & pop shops are always told: never keep the credit card numbers on file anyhow. Most of the shops abide by this rule, so what makes CardSystems any different? One word: Money.

The problem is: we've got issues when we can't even control our own personal information, nor hold the vendors liable for breaches that they and their sub-contractors are responsible for.

It's just a sad story.

Cheers,
Dan L

Share: