Will credit card data breaches be a growing trend?
“It is a growing trend,” said Ross Dahman, president of Huntleigh Technology Group.
Dahman says organized criminal groups overseas in Asia and Afrika are to blame for a lot of the recent security breaches.
“Those locations have little enforcement authority, so there’s really nothing to stop credit card fraud,” said Dahman.
The U.S. Secret Service wants to reassure Americans.
ABC-7 spoke with an agent who said consumers shouldn’t destroy their credit cards just yet.
“The number of people compromised in this type of breach is a small percentage to those consumers that are not compromised,” said Resident Agent in charge, Ed Garcia, who says the most important security measure is the consumer.
“On a regular basis what they should be doing is paying attention to their bank statements,” said Garcia.
Dahman agrees.
“I think the key word here is vigilance, you got to be vigilant, no one is going to do it for you. If there’s been a credit card fraud you have to have to follow up, You have to continue to monitor the situation. No ones going to do that for you, you have to do that yourself,” said Dahman.
Dahman is a bit more pessimistic.
He says there’s not much you can do to prevent hackers targeting national retailers from getting your information.
His advice: be proactive to limit your exposure.
“You can put credit card alerts on your credit cards through the credit card company,”
“Once a year pull in a credit report from the credit bureaus and check to see that there’s no fraudulent accounts being opened in their name,” said Garcia.
