On May 15^th, Schnuck Markets, Inc. announced that a December 2012 data breach has potentially compromised the credit card security of 2.4 million customers at the vast majority (79 out of 100) of its U.S. store locations.  Chairman and CEO Scott Schnuck stated that, “We’ve worked hard to provide a secure transaction environment for our customers and today I make a personal pledge to you that we will be relentless in maintaining the security of our payment processing system.”  Schnuck’s announcement indicated that the investigation of the data breach has required painstaking analysis of digital evidence by the Schnuck’s internal team as well as a team of computer forensics experts hired by Schnuck’s to identify affected stores and card numbers.

 Schnuck’s experience is a warning to all members of the hospitality industry to be similarly vigilant in maintaining a strong payment card security environment.  A strong PCI compliance program can help prevent the costs and associated negative publicity of a data breach.  PCI compliance for hoteliers should also be incorporated across an entire company’s operations, so that a single breach cannot compromise so many locations, as occurred in the Schnuck’s breach.

The Venza Group has partnered with Arnall Golden Gregory (AGG) to create a series of interactive eLearning modules to address PCI compliance in the hotel industry. Management, employees and IT are taught about the requirements they must support as part of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards.  The Venza Group also is partnering with AGG to create an interactive eLearning module to train hoteliers on general privacy and security awareness issues. 

Link: http://www.schnucks.com/pressreleases/pressrelease.asp?id=218