National Retail Federation Suggests 6 Ways Congress Can Improve Cybersecurity

In an open letter to Barack Obama and Congress, the National Retail Federation said it outlines achievable solutions that industry must work toward in order to better protect customers, empower its retail members and effectively safeguard America’s cyberspace against criminal hackers.

1. Support the immediate passage of FEDERAL FRAUD PROTECTION FOR DEBIT CARDS, similar to what we enjoy for credit cards. Americans should not have to pay more for fraud protection.

2. Call on the payment card industry to stop relying on fraud-prone signatures and issue PIN AND CHIP CARDS for all Americans, among the least protected consumers in the world.

3. Encourage all entities in the payments system — not just retailers — to ADOPT POINT-TO-POINT ENCRYPTION to protect consumers’ payment information throughout the entire payments chain.

4. Endorse the development of OPEN, COMPETITIVE TOKENIZATION STANDARDS to replace consumers’ sensitive personal data (including payment card data) with non-sensitive “tokens” so that stored information is useless to would-be hackers.

5. Continue support for a SINGLE NATIONAL DATA BREACH NOTIFICATION LAW that would establish a clear disclosure standard for all businesses to inform consumers of breaches whenever and wherever they occur.

6. Support the passage of federal law enforcement legislation that would AID IN THE INVESTIGATION AND PROSECUTION OF CRIMINALS that breach our businesses’ networks and harm our consumers.