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Small Business DSS Survey Enlightening

With 86% of retailers concerned with keeping their customer card information secure and feel payment card data security is important to their business, 64% believe their business is not vulnerable to credit/debit card data theft and 60% are unaware of the costs they could incur in the event of a breach. Moreover, 66% claimed awareness of the PCI DSS while only 49% completed a self-assessment while 4% have fallen victim to data breach. However, 42% did not know that merchants are obligated to conduct the self-assessment annually and 41% had not heard of the recent change in regulations. This, according to the National Retail Federation and First Data research, also showed more than 60% of these smaller merchants did not realize that credit card companies are authorized to fine their business a per-card fee for every card that has to be canceled if it is determined that they are the source of a data breach. According to the 2009 U.S. Cost of a Data Breach Study by the Ponemon Institute, the average cost for merchants coping with a data breach in 2009 rose to $6.7 million with the cost per customer record breached estimated at $204. With this, 76% demonstrated restricting physical access to cardholder data and using anti-virus software were the two most frequently reported protection methods; 67% restricted access to cardholder data by business need to know; and 64% developed and maintained secure systems and applications.