Data Vanishes Into Thin Air
It’s beginning to sound like a James Bond movie: “. . . hackers pointed a telescope-shaped antenna toward the store and used a laptop computer to decode data streaming through the air between hand-held price-checking devices, cash registers and the store’s computers.” This TJX security breach story just won’t go away—now The Wall Street Journal has published an article saying that the initial breach likely was made by hackers who first recovered data from the wireless network in a Marshalls store, then used that data to hack into a central database at the company’s headquarters, acquiring perhaps (the “possible” number seems to get bigger every week) 200 million customer card numbers. In other words, Marshalls failed to protect data being transmitted over its internal wireless networks.
We started out blogging this story several weeks ago by pointing out that multichannel retailers need to take the possibility of PCI fines seriously, and this incident would inevitably intensify PCI audits. As the ripples spread from the TJX breach, retailers in all channels should definitely expect more and tougher PCI audits and fines, much more talk, and maybe legislation designed to make retailers more financially responsible for security breaches related to information about their customers.
What effect has this unfolding story had on your business? What can companies best do to protect themselves and their customers?
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Jeff Barry is Director of Marketing of F. Curtis Barry & Co., a multichannel operations consulting company focusing on the entire direct fulfillment process with expertise in order management systems.