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Education

This was also a major PR problem Srii Srinivasan, CEO of Chargeback Gurus, is a veteran at minimizing chargebacks and fraud for
for Equifax. The outrage wouldn't card-not-present transactions. She specializes in helping high-risk merchants optimize operations
have been so severe if the com- overhead, identify vulnerabilities and reduce fraud and chargeback revenue loss. As a payments,
pany hadn't waited to disclose ecommerce and software development expert, Srii leads a team of 120 members delivering the fast-
the breach. Beyond prevention, est-growing chargeback representment and prevention services in the United States; Chargeback
businesses need to develop a ro- Gurus was named to the 2017 Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing businesses. A seasoned speaker, Srii
bust plan for dealing with a secu- is active in the Electronic Transactions Association and consults enterprise businesses on revenue
rity breach that involves notifying increase, automation and fraud minimization. Contact her at srii@chargebackgurus.com.
stakeholders as soon as possible
and making amends for the prob-
lem.
3. Nobody is safe from fraud

Doing business just got a whole lot
riskier. Everyone directly affect-
ed by the breach is going to be at
risk of credit card fraud and iden-
tity theft for the rest of their lives,
which means that it's that much
more likely for SMBs to be hit with
fraudulent transactions. Because
the Equifax data breach includes
everything from card data and So-
cial Security numbers to driver's
license numbers and addresses,
it's going to be harder than ever for
online merchants to tell the differ-
ence between a fraudster and a le-
gitimate customer. It's time to dou-
ble down on security and customer
verification, but also be prepared
for more chargebacks.
4. Be proactive

Everything is going to change. The
three major breaches announced in
September are probably only one
small piece of the pie. It's likely
other security breaches are hap-
pening as we speak that we just
don't know about yet. But if there is
one silver lining, it's that the Equi-
fax breach has made people very
angry. It has inspired lawmakers
to re-evaluate how to hold orga-
nizations accountable for failing
to protect consumer information
– and putting the entire payments
industry at risk as a result – and it
has reminded businesses to take
cybersecurity seriously.
All companies, SMBs and high-risk
merchants especially, need to be
proactive, forward-thinking and
prepared to adapt to a changing se-
curity, legislative and technological
landscape.

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