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Survey: Consumers not too confident regarding retail data security

The retail industry is getting poor marks when it comes to secure handling of consumer data, ranking the lowest, along with government agencies, in a new survey.

July 1, 2015

The retail industry is getting poor marks when it comes to secure handling of consumer data, ranking the lowest, along with government agencies, in a new survey regarding consumer security confidence.

The 2015 Unisys Security Insights survey, conducted by Unisys Corp. and Lieberman, a research firm, reveals a large number of Americans expect to have personal data breached in a security incident within the next year, according to an announcement on the study.

The survey polled consumers in 12 countries about data security and confidence relating to seven different industries, including airline, healthcare, retail, telecom, banking and utilities. With regard to retail, 44 percent said they believe a breach is likely, with just 19 percent not expecting a retail security episode affecting their personal data.

Government agencies didn’t fare much better with consumers, as 39 percent said a breach is likely and 29 percent are more optimistic it won’t happen.

"Organizations that hold consumers' personal data have a major challenge maintaining public confidence that they safely protect private information," said Dave Frymier, VP and chief information security officer at Unisys. "While hackers will always find their way into an organization's network, enterprises can protect high-value data through basic precautions like patching and sharing threat intelligence as well as using advanced security technologies like micro-segmentation."