Financial data breaches in the U.S. retail economy: Restoring confidence in information technology security standards

Thomas A. Hemphill and Phil Longstreet

Technology in Society, 2016, vol. 44, issue C, 30-38

Abstract: Managing effective security of personal customer data located in computer networks has become a strategic business and public policy issue for the U.S. retail sector. The article discusses the global credit card payment industry self-regulation regime established by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (“Council”) to combat cybercrime, comparing and evaluating the Council's existing standards regime to the theory and practices found in the industry self-regulation literature. A review of national cybercrime trends in both the volume and financial impacts (“losses”) of electronic financial record breaches on the U.S. retail sector is presented. After identifying the primary areas of retail electronic records breach vulnerability, an improved industry standards framework is developed that proposes to enhance security and minimize data privacy compromises through the adoption of recommended pure industry self-regulation (improved “security standard”) and market force mechanisms (mandatory “cyber liability insurance coverage”). The article concludes with a discussion of the implementation of the proposed industry self-regulation and market force framework; its current limitations; and what technology advancements may bring in the future to provide more effective security and protection for consumers' personal data and financial transactions.

Keywords: Cybercrime; Cyber liability insurance coverage; Data breaches; Industry self-regulation; Public regulation; Standards-setting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160791X15300154
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:teinso:v:44:y:2016:i:c:p:30-38

DOI: 10.1016/j.techsoc.2015.11.007

Access Statistics for this article

Technology in Society is currently edited by Charla Griffy-Brown

More articles in Technology in Society from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().