Breaking Breach Secrecy, Part 3

The authors' analysis of data-breach statistics shows that organizations poorly protect personal data. Possible solution: U.S. federal rules for guidance in developing comprehensive data protection programs. 

There are data breaches and then there are data breaches. Hold on as we look at two enormous cases reported by the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (PRCH) in its "Chronology of Data Breaches." Even though the number of records compromised in these two cases is atypical, it does illustrate the problems consumers face when their personal data is not protected by organizations that use it.

On Jan. 20, 2009, Visa and MasterCard alerted Heartland Payment Systems, a credit and debit card processor, of suspicious activity related to card transactions. After the company investigated, it found evidence of malicious software that compromised data on more than 130 million cards. The incident may have been the result of a global cyberfraud operation.