You are here: News / Cotton Traders' credit card data theft is tip of the iceberg
Cotton Traders' credit card data theft is tip of the iceberg
Archived article dated Thursday June 12th 2008
Clothing firm Cotton Traders this week confirmed that its website had been hacked into and the credit card details of 38,000 customers had been stolen.
by Glynn Davis
This breach of its security took place in January, since when the company says it has upgraded its website. In our view this incident, along with the attack last year on the website of TK Maxx, are far from unusual. There must be a whole host of such breaches taking place within the retail industry on an ongoing basis but neither the banks nor the retailers want it known that they have deficient security systems and that personal data has been nicked.
It's the same with the credit card companies. We all know that they suffer from horrendous levels of fraud but do they give us all the juicy details - no.What makes the problem of data breaches particularly prevalent is that once the crooks find a point of weakness with one retailer's site then they can use this on many other online stores. A weakness within the card processing procedures of a bank, a credit card company, a payment processing provider, or even with a shopping cart that is used on one website will open the door to many other websites where the same problem will be replicated.
The more web transactions that are made then the more tempting it will be for crooks to hack into sites and the more breaches that will take place. This will lead to a loss of confidence in shopping online by consumers, which should be a worry to all retailers.
One step they can take is to accept more than just credit and debit card payments and let shoppers pay with alternative payment methods including PayPal, pre-paid, and cash vouchers such as Ukash, which do not involve any exchange of personal data. These won't solve the big 'hidden' problem of data theft but they will help stop the most security-conscious consumers from simply walking away from online shopping as data theft creeps ever-higher up the agenda.
Tagged as: data theft | e commerce | glynn davis
Share this article:
Should your colleagues be reading the Retail Bulletin?
Let them know about us.
