Keep your cards close

During the holiday season, an estimated 70 million credit and debit cards were compromised when Target databases were hacked.

The numbers, expiration dates, customer names, pins and embed codes were
stolen.

Target attempted to mitigate the damage with a 10 percent discount the weekend before Christmas.

Not surprisingly, the company still reported its fourth quarter sales down 2.5 percent instead of the previously predicted flat sales.

The exposure was far-reaching. IU students reported problems up and down the holiday season.

Some are even having trouble paying tuition with frozen accounts and backed up cards.

Really, this could not have come at a worse time.

Many banks, rather than choosing to wait, just
issued new cards regardless of whether or not the card information was vulnerable.

That’s how bad it was.

It speaks, again, to the fact that the consumer must be the smart one.
Information, no matter how secure, is easily leaked if the hacker is smart enough.

It also speaks to the known but largely unappreciated fact that massive industries do not have time to cater to individuals.

The customer must be the smart one.

And even though companies should protect the security of their clientele, each consumer is still a monetary number valued by his or her participation in the economic survival of the store.

But this isn’t just exclusive to massive, conglomerate chains.

Some Bloomington stores have had trouble keeping their servers secure, and student information was leaked.

Even though we can generally trust where we shop or drink, we can not afford to be careless.  

And something must be done to protect the consumer.

With the amount of identity and credit theft in America, it seems that banks are more stockpiles for hackers than they are secure places to save money.

And it’s especially important that students be aware of these issues.

Students tend to be big shoppers, despite the stereotype that they are poor, eat ramen and only drink cheap vodka.

They use Target’s grocery section and frequently go shopping on Kirkwood.

Sorority sisters buy outfits for formals, and independents outfit their houses for parties.

Students are active members of the Bloomington economy, though many remain largely unaware of the unexpected dangers of shopping.

We once were a society that ran entirely on cash that could easily be stolen, but it seems the plastic in our wallets is just the same.

Except now it’s not a stickup in a dark alley — it’s the massive hacking of our information from the stores we love to frequent.

Let’s hope this will all boil down to one big lesson on the pitfalls of a digital market and no one will suffer serious consequences.

But there are pitfalls, and as students leave Bloomington and enter the global market and global economy, they most definitely need to be aware of them.

­— opinion@idsnews.com
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