Consumers need to by wary of credit card use

Consumers need to step it up if they want to protect their identity and personal data by reducing use of credit cards. One way to do it would be to only pay cash, avoid loyalty programs and always have a receipt for making returns. Any data that you give retailers could be open to attack from hackers who are looking for credit card information, social security numbers, personal data etc. Although retailers have spent millions to update their systems there are still lots of loopholes and old techniques used in the business.

"The retail sector has some unique vulnerabilities from the older technologies they use, often from legacy systems," said Tom Arnold, partner at PSC, a San Jose, California-based data security and compliance consulting firm. "Adopting more up-to-date security standards has been a slow process."