Data security

Chick-fil-A recently became the latest victim of a credit card breach, bringing to light the threat that all quick serve restaurants and small retailers are increasingly facing from hackers and data thieves and underscores the challenges businesses face in keeping their networks and data secure.

The payments industry is quickly adapting to new technology, new regulations and new consumer demands. Here are 15 of the industry's major transformations already in progress.

Consumers have long resisted security hardware such as one-time password tokens, as these devices typically slow down the payment process. But shoppers may finally be willing to give up a little convenience for some peace of mind.

Customers give slightly higher marks to retail banks for their overall customer service than they do to credit card issuers, even if the credit card service is a division of the same bank, according to a recent survey of credit and debit cardholders.

The fast food chain Chick-fil-A has confirmed that it was the victim of a recent data breach.

As payments providers shore up their security, using tokenization on top of biometrics on top of encryption, will there be a need for merchants to manage fraud on a per-transaction basis?

Some bankers are worrying that when retailers are no longer such fruitful targets, the hackers will redouble their efforts to break into banks.

It has been nearly a year since the Target breach has tuned the world into what fraud managers have been dealing with for years.

2014 was a big year for payments. Disruption came from within the financial services industry and from outsiders like Apple and Walmart. Mainstream payment companies had to respond to these new competitors as well as adapt to fresh attention from regulators and fraudsters.

In its first year of heavy involvement in testing and certifying payment security technology, scientists at Underwriters Laboratories have determined that tokenization should be a significant piece of a strong security "triangle."

Late last week, hackers took down Payza's blog and posted a mocking message in its place, implying that they were sitting on a treasure trove of stolen data. Payza says this was merely a hacker's stunt, and that no data of real value could have been compromised, but the company must still deal with the event's damage to its brand.

Staples Inc., the largest U.S. office-supply retailer, said 1.16 million payment cards may have been affected in a series of data breaches that occurred from July into September.

The Sony Pictures web attack may have led you to question whether your own business was secure and if the information your clients provide via different payment methods can be breached, causing mistrust between business owner and vendor.

Payment processor Payza's blog suffered a Web attack on Friday, Dec. 19, though the company said the assailants did not compromise sensitive business information.

Large security incidents this year included JPMorgan Chase's August breach affecting 76 million households and seven million small businesses, Home Depot's breach of 56 million card account records it confirmed in September, and the Sony hack discovered in November, in which emails were stolen and hard drives destroyed. Here are some educated guesses about some of the security threats that will crop up next year.

Optimal Payments has released a series of onboarding and developer options in an attempt to stay nimble amid the growing market of companies that use application programming interfaces (APIs) to offer transaction capabilities to retailers.

Nearly a decade ago, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council told banks that passwords are not enough to guard financial data, and many companies scrambled to evaluate new and sometimes bizarre alternatives.

Heading into 2015, merchants weary from data breach fallout and worried about stricter PCI guidance will likely turn to third parties for payment security over a do-it-yourself approach.

Tangerine, Simple, American Express and Discover are some of the financial institutions that use Apple's Touch ID fingerprint-authentication technology to let consumers replace passwords or to add security.

In a breach incident that illustrates how long a company can do business without knowing fraudsters are potentially stealing its card data, Charge Anywhere LLC informed its merchants it has found and shut down malware that initially entered its network five years ago.