With large companies falling victim to serious hacks and breaches in the past year, President Barrack Obama proposed plans to tackle cyber security and challenged Congress to pass tougher laws to better protect consumers.
“Major companies get hacked; peoples’ personal financial information gets stolen. The problem is growing,” Obama said.
During the speech, the President called for action to be taken on slow-moving proposals, including laws and regulations that would allow companies to share information on new security threats.
Larry Clinton from the Internet Security Alliance confirmed the administration is currently looking into providing incentives for establishments that comply with the latest cyber security standards. Such awards could include priority in acquiring government contracts and a decrease in regulations.
“The administration has been reviewing these for quite a while now and we are hopeful they will be coming out with a proposal of their own in that direction fairly shortly,” Clinton highlighted.
In support of Obama’s statements, the retail industry has taken several steps to protect its consumers.
Sandy Kennedy, President of the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA), highlighted, “Retailers have demonstrated a commitment to working with policymakers to enhance cyber security, carefully steward customer data and strengthen consumer trust.”
A report by the Federal Reserve indicates that the use of PINs on debit cards is 700 percent more effective compared to signature authorization.
EMV technology will be the standard after October’s fraud liability shift, and will help reduce credit card compromises in the event of an attack.
Using a chip, a security code is generated for every transaction with strict user verification.
The PIN acts as a final step in the authentication process, which is needed to complete a transaction.
The retail sector aims to facilitate and spread the new technology through investments in chip and PIN-enabled terminals, though banks have faced scrutiny for pushing for chip and signature cards instead, arguing consumers will be inconvenienced if they are forced to change their swipe and sign habits.