Newsroom

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Washington (July 7, 2016) – National Association of Federal Credit Unions (NAFCU) President and CEO Dan Berger issued the following statement in light of Wendy's announcement today that 1,025 stores – more than three times their earlier estimates—were impacted by the malware data breach first reported in January.

"It is an outrage that retailers continue to compromise the safety of consumers' sensitive financial information and our economy," said Berger. "Congress must act to implement national data security standards for retailers. Without these standards, essentially every time consumers use their credit or debit card they are gambling to see when their data will be breached, not if."

This year alone, the Identity Theft Resource Center in its latest reportnotes that the business sector, which includes retailers, has had 234 data breaches resulting in more than 2.4 million records being compromised. This accounts for 48 percent of all the incidents and nearly 20 percent of exposed records. Additionally, in IBM Ponemon Cost of a Data Breach Study, reported that there were 64 percent more security incidents in 2015 than 2014. As of last year, more than one billion records had been breached.

NAFCU was the first financial trade organization to call for national data securitystandards for retailers, and it continuesto push for legislative action on Capitol Hill. Since 1999, financial institutions including credit unions have adhered to the stringent standards of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that help safeguard consumers' sensitive personal and financial information.

NAFCU continues to seek passage of a data security bill that would create a strong national standard of protection for retailers, recognize credit unions' compliance with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and hold retailers accountable for breaches occurring on their end. The bipartisan S. 961, the "Data Security Act of 2015," introduced recently by Sens. Tom Carper, D-Del., and Roy Blunt, R-Mo., and H.R. 2205, the companion House bill introduced by Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas, and Rep. John Carney, D-Del., currently before Congress would set a national data security standard for retailers akin to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) while acknowledging financial institutions' existing adherence to GLBA standards.

The National Association of Federal Credit Unions is the only national trade association focusing exclusively on federal issues affecting the nation's federally insured credit unions. NAFCU membership is direct and provides credit unions with the best in federal advocacy, education and compliance assistance.www.nafcu.org.

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Patty Briotta
Director of Public Relations
Office:703-842-2820
pbriotta@nafcu.org