Dive Brief

• Analysts are concerned that Target’s massive holiday credit-card hack and recent news of a similar problem at Neiman Marcus could just be the tip of the iceberg.
• The cyber thieves managed to obtain credit card data and personal information — including phone numbers, email addresses, PIN numbers, expiration dates and those 3-digit “security” numbers — from some 110 million Target customers.
• These hacks, not surprisingly, generate billions of dollars for the perpetrators.

Dive Insight

While Sears, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. and other large retail outlets have been forced to announce that they haven’t been breached the way Target and Neiman Marcus were in December, it may only be a matter of time, say cyber-security experts. David Kennedy —​ founder of TrustedSec, a security consulting company that works with major retailers — and others say to expect more news of similar issues, large or small. New security technology that is more protective of consumer credit card information has not yet been fully implemented, leaving retailers vulnerable in the meantime. And better protections may be about more than keeping up in a technological arms race; it may require concerted efforts at top executive levels to combat cyber-thievery on many fronts.