This white paper offers an overview of the many questions retailers must consider when implementing encryption, including determining what to encrypt, where to encrypt, and how to encrypt.

For years, retailers have focused on optimizing their IT Infrastructures to leverage consumer data deliver better, more convenient, and more personalized service, to operate more intelligently, and to increase the long-term value of each customer. Yet success today will be just as much contingent upon how well that customer data is secured as how it is used.

Driven largely by the awareness of security breaches created by disclosure laws like California’s SB 1386, law makers, card issuers, and consumers themselves are holding retailers accountable for the protection of personal data. Today, retailers that suffer a security breach in which customer data is lost or stolen, face widespread negative publicity, lost business, lawsuits, and fines that can threaten the very viability of the business.