The Next Big Opps.

MasterCard  and Visa, working with Law Enforcement, are investigating a breach of information from a third party card processing company.  The breach may have exposed up to 1.5 million credit card numbers and holders.  The consumers now get to watch their statements for charges they don’t recognize and didn’t make.  Businesses get to deal with the loss of goods and services to the thieves using the stolen data. The credit card companies get to monitor the activity and try to shut down the fraudulent charges or deal with the financial loss.

The interesting part of this is if you asked the normal consumer who the third party company is or what they do, you will get a blank look or a shrug of the shoulders.  The third parties are the unknown element in the business loop.  The customer knows the merchant and the credit card company / bank but they have no idea of how many others are parts of the loop.

The problem is when one of the background companies has a failure that exposes the data the message the consumer receives will be diluted and vague.  The diluted message doesn’t clearly inform the consumer that the data is theirs or the proper steps to mitigate the loss and quite normally there will not be a clear explanation of what has happened.  Because there is not a clear connection between the company, and a vendor they used, who lost the data the focus falls on the merchant.

This is and will continue to be a very costly problem until each group steps up and put in place the needed things to reduce the damages.  The Businesses need to hold their venders responsible for the security of the data that passes through their systems.  The processors need to use up to date encryption software to eliminate the potential easy score of data. The Banks and Card companies need to keep their security standards up.  For the consumer they need to be aware of their personal information and where it is shared.

Until  the day we all pull together the thieves will continue to succeed.