U.S. POS Systems Remain Vulnerable

When it comes to cybersecurity, breaches involving POS systems were more common in North America than in other countries, according to the “2017 Trustwave Global Security Report.” The report compiles intelligence and statistics from Trustwave researchers regarding breaches that occurred across 21 countries in 2016.

“Merchants’ slow adoption of EMV chip card readers in the United States again resulted in POS attacks accounting for the largest share of occurrences in North America,” according to the report. “Researchers expect those attacks to diminish as more merchants adopt the technology and consumers grow more familiar with it. In the meantime, North American shoppers should always choose the chip when possible.”

In their global analysis of breaches, the researchers also noted the following:

• Almost half (49 percent) of incidents occurred in North America.
• Twenty-two percent of incidents affected the retail industry.
• Sixty-three percent of breaches targeted payment card data (33 percent targeting magnetic stripe data and 30 percent targeting card-not-present data).