Since then my speculation is that the hacking methods being used have become more sophisticated and PCI data protection standards—designed to protect merchants from data compromises—might no longer be 100 percent effective.
Data compromises cost the victim affected, the retailer and the financial institutions issuing the payment cards.
I tend to write on behalf of the victim and I wanted to point to an excellent article by Tom Fragala, where he analyzes the protections offered when using credit and debit cards. General consensus is that it is a lot safer to use a credit card from a consumer point-of-view. Note I'm saying this from a security point-of-view because too much credit card debt isn't always a good thing, but that's a whole other subject.
Tom is a fellow blogger, and the CEO of a privacy friendly identity theft protection service (Truston) that just won another in what is becoming a long string of awards. They also offer a 45-day (completely) free trial to use their services.
As long as there is a lot of money to be stolen from payment cards, criminals are going to be motivated to defeat security fixes.
The recent news that one of these retail hacking rings were caught and put behind bars probably will go a lot further in preventing data compromises than security fixes, which seem to be counter-fixed, fairly frequently.
The eleven Cost Plus Stores known to have been compromised were San Diego (372 Fourth Avenue, San Diego, CA 92101); Oceanside (2140 Vista Way, Oceanside, CA 92054); La Jolla (8657 Villa La Jolla Drive Suite 117, La Jolla, CA 92037); Mission Viejo (28341 Marquerite Parkway, Mission Viejo, CA 92692); San Dimas (638 West Arrow Highway, San Dimas, CA 91773); Valencia (25676 North The Old Road, Valencia, CA 91381); Palm Desert (44-439 Town Center Way, Palm Desert, CA 92260); Oxnard (221 Esplanade Drive, Oxnard, CA 93030); Westlake Village (Thousand Oaks) (160 Promenade Way, Westlake Village, CA 91362); Tucson East (5975 E. Broadway, Tucson, AZ 85711); and Tucson (4821 North Stone Avenue Tucson, AZ 85704).
Cost Plus also has a FAQ page for people who think they may have been compromised.
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