... Large retailers and grocery stores that are members of the PCI Council have resisted toughening standards on the ground that some solutions would be costly to implement or result in slower transaction times that could frustrate customers and sales.
“They’re utilizing a ten-year-old system,” [Gartner analyst Avivah Litan] says, and to make changes would slow down the processing and create extra costs. “When it’s busy during Christmas, even three or four seconds per transaction means less money.”
The Target breach underscores that the industry needs radical change. “The only way to really beat this thing is to make the data unusable if it’s stolen and to protect it the entire time,” Litan says.Kim Zetter
