Data Security

With the arrival of the holiday shopping season came a renewed wave of online fraud. The recent Wal-Mart episode revealed an interesting new twist in this game. The often-complex relationship between "traditional" brick-and-mortar retailers, "new" online e-commerce platforms, and the people that drive all of these — i.e., the consumer — took a whole new turn. 

Fast-food restaurant chain Chick-fil-A could well be the first retail breach to be publicly confirmed in 2015. Chick-fil-A released a public statement on Jan. 2, confirming that it's investigating a possible data breach at its restaurants. While Chick-fil-A's statement was issued on Jan. 2, the company admitted that it received a report about a potential breach on Dec. 19. After the report was received, Chick-fil-A  indicated that it launched an investigation to determine what had occurred.

There are few shoes more recognizable than the Timberland yellow boot. You know the one: The high-top styling, the sturdy-looking nubuck leather, the rubber lug sole to protect feet from sheets of rain or piles of snow. But the durable boot - and the rest of Timberland's footwear and

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba took 90 million counterfeit items offline and spent over 1 billion yuan ($160.7 million) fighting fake goods, from the beginning of 2013 to November this year. The online company's announcement highlights its massive issue with so-called "knock-offs" and its efforts to clean up its act ahead of the company's record $25 billion initial public offering (IPO) in September.

If retailers want to keep both their customers’ financial data as well as their brand reputation out of harm's way, it's imperative they take the right steps in protecting vulnerable information. Below are five critical steps that retailers need to be taking to keep their customers’ financial information safe from a potential breach:

Women's apparel retailer bebe is the latest big-name store to fall victim to a breach exposing customers’ credit and debit card information. bebe detected suspicious activity in its in-store payment processing system between Nov. 8 and Nov. 26, the retailer said Friday. Hackers could have accessed cardholder names, account numbers, expiration dates and verification codes for customers who shopped in-store during that period. Online and mobile purchasers weren't affected in the breach.

The online retail industry is booming. E-commerce generated $231 billion in sales for U.S. retailers last year and is expected to increase 13 percent to $262 billion this year, according to Forrester Research. The growth of e-commerce, which already accounts for about 8 percent of total retail sales in the U.S., is expected to outpace sales growth at brick-and-mortar stores over the next five years, reaching $370 billion in sales by 2017. Retail companies are investing in

Nothing can shatter the promise of high sales numbers more definitively than a crashed website, slow-loading pages and broken links. The holiday rush is the toughest test of website performance, creating a stressful nightmare for IT while images of sugar plums are dancing in sales reps’ heads. For many companies, technical issues and downtime can lead to millions of dollars in lost sales, frustrated shoppers and a damaged image. There's still time for both small and large IT departments to make sure their infrastructure is up to the challenge. Here are three things IT can do to guarantee a happy holiday season:

When I was in school, there was a guy on our basketball team who could dunk like it was nobody's business. Left hand, right hand, two hands behind his head, you name it. He also had the unfortunate habit of dribbling the ball off his foot and ricocheting it across the court. He sat the bench.

Home Depot faces at least 44 lawsuits in the United States and Canada over a massive data breach earlier this year that affected 56 million debit and credit cards. The nation's biggest home improvement retailer said Tuesday in a regulatory filing that several state and federal agencies also are looking into the data breach and it may face more litigation from customers, banks, shareholders and others. Home Depot said the litigation and the investigations may distract management and affect how it runs its business. It also could lead to additional costs and fines.