U.s. Retailers Face Pressure To Raise Cybersecurity Spending

[Ron Burgundy]

By Dhanya Skariachan and Phil Wahba NEW YORK (Reuters) - Target Corp's decision to speed up a $100 million program to adopt the use of chip-enabled smart cards is just a drop in the bucket when it comes to what retailers need to do to defend themselves against future cyber attacks, according to security experts and IT service providers. The pressure to boost security spending comes at a time when merchants are already spending millions to fend off online retailer Amazon.com and facing an October 2015 deadline set by payment networks Visa Inc and MasterCard Inc to accept new payment cards that store information on computer chips rather than on traditional magnetic stripes. Target, the No. 3 U.S. retailer, said this week it hoped to finish upgrading its payment card network to the more secure "chip and PIN" standard by early 2015, some six months ahead of its previous plan. U.S. retailers have been so focused on cutting costs and expanding their online presence in the past decade that they have not spent enough of their technology budgets on protecting customer data, security experts and IT service providers said.

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