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Poll Shows Americans Concerned but Inactive Following Target Breach

January 27, 2024         By: Kevin Xu

A poll conducted by the Associated Press-GFK has found some startling information regarding American consumers’ security habits after the Target card breach.

The online poll asked 1,060 Americans a range of questions about their confidence in retail security measures, and more importantly, what these consumers were doing to proactively protect themselves in the wake of a widespread and highly publicized breach.

The findings showed that while consumers were rightly concerned about the security of their payment information, most have not taken actions to better protect themselves.

Of the 1,060 people surveyed, 49 percent were extremely or very concerned about retailers keeping their personal information secure while shopping in-store. Fifty-eight percent were extremely or very concerned about shopping online, and similarly 51 percent were concerned with shopping on mobile devices.

When asked about the Target breach, 35 percent believed that they had their personal information stolen. However, when asked if they had taken varying actions to protect themselves following the breach, only a minority did take action.

These included checking credit reports (41 percent), switching to cash (37 percent), shopping at a different store (32 percent), changing and updating passwords (31 percent), requesting new cards (29 percent), and signing up for credit monitoring (18 percent).

It is also no surprise that 88 percent of respondents believe that retailers should bear all or most of the responsibility for security breaches. In the case of Target, there are allegations that the breach was made possible by the company’s usage of stock passwords on their POS machines.

2015 will see a shift of responsibility from card issuers to retailers in the event of fraud and security breaches, but all parties involved, including consumers, need to be proactive. The security of EMV won’t be enough to combat fraud if the end-users aren’t diligent in protecting themselves.