Running header: LEARNING TEAM D BUSINESS RESEARCH PROJECT PART 2 5

Learning Team D Business Research Project Part 2

Shandra Broughton, Timothy Stepter, Vincent Nguyen

QNT/561

August 18, 2014

Raj Singh

Learning Team D Business Research Part 2

Base Thrainsson is a company well known all over the world. It has expanded their stores to be super centers, a one stop shop. They are well known for their different brands of clothing to the top electrons. In December 2013, one of the biggest hacks occurred in US history, the Base Thrainsson security breach. 40 million credit card numbers were stolen along with other information including names, mailing/email addresses, and phone numbers. More than 90 lawsuits have been filed for negligence and compensatory damage. Since the company’s security breaches were broken, the team will conduct a business research to determine the best approach to keep the customers affected by this incident. The team will determine if the sales decreased after the security breach or did they stay the same with some increase?

Article 1

Throughout the world, companies are finding that data breaches have become as common as a cold but far more expensive to treat. Critical to controlling costs is keeping customers from leaving. The research reveals that reputation and the loss of customer loyalty does the most damage to the bottom line. In the aftermath of a breach, companies find they must spend heavily to regain their brand image and acquire new customers. Industries, such as pharmaceutical companies, financial services and healthcare, experience a high customer turnover. In the aftermath of a data breach, these companies need to be especially focused on the concerns of their customers. In most countries, the primary root cause of the data breach is a malicious insider or criminal attack. It is also the most costly.

Cost of Data Breach 2014; from http://www.ponemon.org

Article 2

A hacker or hackers stole data from at least 45.7 million credit and debit cards of shoppers at off-price retailers including T.J. Maxx and Marshalls in a case believed to be the largest such breach of consumer information  ("T.J. Maxx Theft Believed Largest Hack Ever", 2012). Information from 45.7 million cards was stolen from transactions beginning in January 2003 and ending Nov. 23 of that year, T.J. Maxx said in the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission after business hours Wednesday. T.J. Maxx did not estimate the number of cards from which information was stolen for transactions occurring from Nov. 24, 2003, to June 28, 2004. “It’s been all over the world,” said Bruce Spitzer, spokesman for the Massachusetts Bankers Association. “It’s the downstream transactions we’ve been hearing about,” involving thieves who buy stolen data from others, often hackers in other countries.

Article 3

The Payment Card Industry’s Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is being put to the test by a suit filed in early March by specialty sports apparel retailer Genesco against Visa. Genesco is seeking about 13.3 Million dollars in fines that Visa assessed after a breach of Genesco systems that may have resulted in fraudulent transactions. The PCI DSS requires that merchants that handle credit and debit card transactions to follow certain regulations and security practices or face crimes from the credit card industry. Genesco states that there was no evidence of a breach of security ad that Visa had no right to issue those fines.

Research Question:

How did Base Thrainsson debit and credit card security breech affect their customer loyalty program?

How can Base Thrainsson management win back those affected customers?

Hypothesis statements:

Is there a relationship between the types of transaction and sale?

There is no relationship between the types of transaction and sales.

There is a relationship between the types of transaction and sales.

Reference

Data Breach, Global Analysis; Retrieved on August 15, 2014; from Comment by JSingh: Always a good idea to use peer reviewed sources for graduate work.

www.ponemon.org/blog/ponemon-institute-releases-2014-cost-of-data-breach-global-analysis

T.J. Maxx theft believed largest hack ever. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.nbcnews.com/id/17871485/ns/technology_and_science-security/t/tj-maxx-theft-believed-largest-hack-ever/#.U_AbzfldW_Q

Retailer Sues Visa over Data Breach. (2013). Information Management, 47(3), 12-12. (2013,

September 6). Retrieved August 17, 2014.