When The Home Depot was one of the many U.S. retailers to suffer a credit card data breach in the summer of 2014, it was predictably ripped in the media. Like its hacked counterparts, the home improvement giant had to learn about credit card security the hard way: Hackers exposed the credit and debit card data for approximately 56 million consumers.
After shopping at The Home Depot earlier this week, not only has it made improvements in credit card security; it has gone beyond.
How Home Depot Has Payments Right
Recently we found our smoke alarms – all three of them, one for each floor – were barely making a squeak. We’ve lived in our three-bedroom cape for 14 years, and smoke alarms should be replaced every 10 years (batteries much more frequent).
It warranted a trip to Home Depot, where we bought three new alarms. I approached the self-checkout and followed the instructions. Out of habit, I swiped my card. Nothing. I did it again, and noticed a prompt:
PLEASE INSERT CARD
Perhaps since I work in the payments industry, I got overly excited – a smart POS machine that still had the swipe option, but identified my credit card as EMV chip-enabled. I obliged, and laughed at the blinking prompt that followed:
PROCESSING TRANSACTION – DO NOT REMOVE CARD
I’ve been in several retail stores over the last few months, behind consumers who quickly, instinctively insert a card and remove when checking out. You can’t blame them; swiping is all American consumers have known since the birth of the credit card.
Non-EMV Merchants Step Up Credit Card Security
Because hackers are much more sophisticated, retailers are taking more precautions, especially those who have been slow to upgrade their point-of-sale devices to adhere with the Oct. 1 EMV liability shift. Many small and medium-sized merchants, who have not migrated to EMV-ready devices, will ask for photo identification during checkout to rule out the use of a counterfeit card.
What EMV Means for E-Commerce Merchants
As EMV-enabled credit cards are expected to curb the counterfeiting of cards, hackers and fraudsters have already began to infiltrate less secure e-commerce websites. Online fraud was rampant in the U.K. in the early days of e-commerce, and repeated in Canada in 2008 when it migrated to EMV.
Instabill has been helping e-commerce businesses worldwide remain secure since 2001 with options that include secure sockets layers, 3D secure technology and MaxMind fraud prevention. Speak with a merchant account manager about our credit card security products at 1-800-318-2713 or via the live chat option below.
