In 2009, Heartland Payment Systems announced that it had suffered a devastating breach: 134 million credit cards were exposed through SQL Injection attacks used to install spyware on Heartland’s data systems. The company processes payments for debit, prepaid and credit cards, in addition to online payments and checks and payroll services.
Frankly, it’s costing U.S. businesses more than other nations’ enterprises worldwide, according to data collected in the 2014 Cost of Cyber Crime Study: United Statesfrom the Ponemon Institute and HP Enterprise Security. The mean cost of cyber crime for a company in the U.S. last year was $12.7 million per year; other countries’ enterprises mean costs ranged from Germany’s $8.13 million to Russia’s mere $3.33 million. The study observes a $1.1 million (or 9.3 percent) increase in cyber crime costs for the U.S. from last year’s report.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman proposed what he called “the strongest” data security law in the nation to combat an increase in the theft of personal information online.