I recently saw this interesting “USA Snapshot” from USA Today. I love these snapshots… quick and easy and starts the discussion. It certainly started this discussion because I happened to be with my sister. I told her that I found this statistic about credit card breaches stopping people from shopping at their stores fascinating. She said she agreed with the statistic. Yes… she definitely agreed with that statistic. I of course called BS. She shops at TJ Maxx every… week. Her husband shops at Home Depot all the time. Why would she shop at TJ Maxx after the enormous breach they had? Silence…
The problem with breaches is of course the fact that confidential information was stolen but also the fact that no one seems to remember that they have occurred. Not remembering the breaches means that we are doomed to repeat them. Not remembering breaches means that nothing will happen to the companies that are not protecting our assets.
The only thing that we as individuals can do to make a change is not to shop at the stores with breaches. Letting the companies know that if they don’t care about our data than we don’t care about their products. This clearly is not happening. I am not saying that our hands are tied with these issues, I am just saying that we don’t take responsibility for ourselves. I am also saying that the above graphic is a lie. People have not stopped shopping at Home Depot, Target, TJ Maxx, etc. People don’t stop eating at PF Chang’s. Those are just some of the big ones, can we name any of the smaller ones? Our mind isn’t setup to think about these things. Our mind does not stop us from walking into an establishment because they were breached. I believe that more than half of the people don’t even remember the breach occurred. Let’s stop kidding ourselves, let’s talk about the truths, lets admit that if you are going to shop somewhere and continue to shop there, you have to incur the risk of those companies when it comes to your data.
If only the risk was scored. If only we had the ratings like we do for restaurants in NY City. 
A way to know how they protected our data before we could walk through the door and hand over our “life”. I mean seriously, I always wondered who walks into a restaurant that does not have a sanitary inspection grade of A? Would you eat at a B or C? Would you shop at a store that did not have a rating of A? You probably are shopping at these stores already.
Lastly, there is no follow up. What if they were a C before but their work made them an A? There are no updates from these breached companies. Yes I know that the grade can change in a second but there minimums that can be set in stone. How do we know that they have made the changes that are necessary to not have this happen again? We don’t know. Once again it is out of our control. Accept that these will continue, you will continue to be affected.
Or just use cash…
