Chief Executive Gregg Steinhafel is calling on retailers and banks to adopt chip-based credit-card technology to better protect shoppers. But the debate was different a decade ago, when the executive was on the other side of the issue as Target pulled the plug on a $40 million, three-year program that did just that.
Chip-based credit cards—in which a smart chip in the card works with special readers installed at stores—are widely used in Europe and Canada, making it more difficult for thieves to profit from the sort of massive data breach that hit Target over the holidays.
But the technology has yet to be embraced in the U.S., and as a result, the U.S. has become the preferred target for criminal hackers.
On Monday, McAllen, Texas, police said they had arrested two Mexican citizens who arrived at the border with fraudulent credit cards tied to the breach at Target.
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McAllen police said Monday they had arrested Mary Carmen Garcia Vaquera, 27, and Daniel Guardiola Dominguez, 28, both of Monterrey, Mexico, and were holding them on state fraud charges. Police Chief Victor Rodriguez said they used cards containing the account information of South Texas residents to buy tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise at national retailers in the area including Best Buy, Wal-Mart and Toys R Us.
“It quickly became obvious to us…it was part of a data set that was involved in what we call now the Target data breach,” Mr. Rodriguez said.
Date: Jan. 20, 2014