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In this week's issue: the first lawsuits have been filed following the Anthem data breach, a new study indicates that more than 30 percent of big merchants are not PCI compliant, the year of 2014 saw over 1 billion records compromised by data breaches, retailers rank payment security as a top concern in 2015 and in the most recent Rippleshot blog post, we take a look at the most common data security misconceptions plaguing the payments industry.

First Lawsuits Launched Following Anthem Data Breach

After news broke of Anthem's massive data breach and the impact it could have as the second-largest health insurance company in the United States, the first lawsuits against the company have been filed. Suits have been filed in Alabama, California, Indiana and Georgia. According to Anthem, the data breach was first detected on January 27, but was publicly announced on February 4.

New Study Says More Than 30 Percent Of Big Merchants Are Not PCI Compliant

A recent study conducted by the Merchant Acquirer’s Committee indicates that more than 30% of Tier 1 merchants are currently not PCI compliant. Based on the member acquirers that responded, the study estimates that only 67% of Tier 1 merchants and 69% of Tier 2 merchants are PCI compliant. Following the a series of data breaches affecting major retailers, information security experts have begun to question the effectiveness of PCI compliance.

More Than One Billion Records Were Compromised By Data Breaches In 2014

According to research conducted by Gemalto and the Breach Level Index, more than one billion records have been compromised by data breaches in 2014 alone. The research was gathered from 1,500 publically known data breaches, which represented a 78% increase in stolen or lost records when compared to 2013. With many calling 2014 “the year of the data breach,” data security has been pushed to the forefront as a major topic of discussion in 2015.

Retailers Rank Security As Top Concern In New Report

In a recent report conducted by Boston Retail Partners, payment security tops the list of concerns for retailers in 2015. In the report, more than half of the 500 retailers surveyed said payment security is their top priority in 2015, beating other key topics such as having an updated inventory system and utilizing a unified commerce platform.

With new payment technologies such as EMV (Europay-MasterCard-Visa) and Apple Pay being slowly introduced to U.S. cardholders, its important to understand how these overlapping and complementary fraud solutions will help reduce payment card fraud. For more info on the payments fraud ecosystem to come, download our white paper on emerging technologies.

Rippleshot Content: The Most Common Data Security Misconceptions

In the latest Rippleshot blog post, we listened to various individuals from the payments industry, including those from financial institutions, retailers and payment processors to see how data security affects their organization. We learned from these talks that there are five common data security misconceptions that organizations believe and in turn, put themselves at greater risk for a data breach.

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