Does the thought of Customer Data Breaches Keep You Up at Night?

In today’s highly technological world, data breaches are becoming more commonplace. The theft of personal data and how that data will be used is a very real and worrisome concern.  Too often we hear about the data breach of a large company and how that breach of personal information has left thousands or even millions of customers vulnerable. One need not look further than the recent breaches of Target, The Home Depot and ADP, to name a few.

Data breaches can result in significant monetary fines to a business, as well as reputation and brand damage in the event policies are violated or a breach occurs. But data breaches are not limited to large, well-known companies. Any business that accepts credit cards from customers is vulnerable to a data breach if proper safeguards are not put in place to keep customer information secure. In short, consumers are at the mercy of businesses to secure and protect their cardholder and personal information.

There are two ways in which cardholder data can be stolen, either (1) from the magnetic strip on the back of the card or (2) via a data breach. Just last year something called EMV was introduced in the United States to help protect against the theft of cardholder data from the magnetic strip of credit cards. This is why all of our banks are converting our credit cards over to chip cards. Doing so protects chip card holders against thieves using devices like “skimmers” at gas stations that lift personal information off of the magnetic strip on a credit card. What EMV does not protect against, however, is a data breach as cardholder data still exists in the system.

Fortunately, the more advanced payment service providers in the marketplace, such as Clarity EPS, offer technology to business owners that can render stolen data useless. This technology, known as Point-2-Point encryption and tokenization, provide an advanced level of security that keeps customer information safe.

Point-2-Point encryption secures a credit card transaction at the point of interaction so that at no point in the transactional process does cardholder data exist . Therefore, it does not matter if the credit card is swiped, dipped or even manually entered. Consequently, in the event a hacker was to infiltrate a business, they would find themselves in possession of useless information.

Tokenization, on the other hand, is the preferred security solution for online/e-commerce transactions. During the processing of an online transaction, sensitive cardholder information is substituted with non-sensitive equivalents or tokens. As a result, tokenization results in an irreversible mathematical process, rendering the information useless to a hacker if they were to break into a system.

All too often businesses fail to appreciate the risks when they accept payment by credit card without having the proper safeguards in place. At Clarity EPS we understand the value and role security needs to play in protecting sensitive cardholder data. For that reason, we offer both Point-2-Point encryption and Tokenization solutions. As the hackers become more prevalent and sophisticated, so too must the retail establishments that swipe, dip or manually enter transactions and businesses that accept payment over the phone, through the mail or via their website.

After all, we all need a good night’s sleep.