Heartland Wants To Be The H&R Block Of Processors
Written by Evan SchumanAs Heartland inches along to officially rolling out its version of end-to-end encryption, the processor is stealing a marketing page from tax return firm H&R Block. It’s preparing to guarantee retailers that if they’re breached while using Heartland’s service, Heartland will cover the costs of any fines and penalties.
Whether or not the risky approach will work is an interesting issue, but you’ve got to love the psychological dynamic at play here. Heartland is a data breach victim and—if and when Heartland is ultimately forced to reveal the volume of data impacted by their breach—might even be one of the largest data breach victims ever. But they’re acting like a reformed smoker who suddenly finds the whiff of a lit cigarette repulsive and disgusting. Then again, a more apt analogy would be a reformed smoker who decides he can make a ton of money opening a Quit Smoking School.
The marketing reality is that almost every processor and security vendor today is hawking some version of something they’re calling end-to-end encryption, forcing Heartland to do something flamboyant to get some attention. It’s easy to nitpick the offer as not going far enough—to truly make the investment riskfree, why not offer to cover legal fees, court costs and the inevitable investigative and forensic costs?—but the more germane point is that it’s farther than anyone else in the space has yet gone.
There will also undoubtedly be wording that the breach’s cause must relate to the Heartland product, which certainly sounds reasonable. But cyberthieves—like all professional criminals—tend to be excellent at sniffing out the weakest link. If a homeowner installed a $9,000 top-of-the-line steel door with five Maxwell Smart-style drill-proof deadbolts, it’s not that the home wouldn’t get burglarized. It will simply push the burglar to come in through the window or sledgehammer through a wall.
But in the end-to-end encryption case, the data could still be accessed, but it would likely remove the retailer from being held responsible.
We should also stress that the offer is not yet finalized, but is merely one that Heartland officials are now telling people they plan to offer later this year.
-Marc
July 8th, 2009 at 9:06 am
It is amusing that a company that cannot guarantee its own security can claim to protect and guarantee the lack of a breach for others.
July 9th, 2009 at 7:48 am
Are these the same upfront and honest folks that announced their breach to the country on January 20, 2009, during the presidential inauguration ? Oh and their Chairman just happened to sell roughly 15 million dollars worth of Heartland stock while all this was going on. Must all just be a giant coincidence. I however would rather not do business with any company like Heartland Payment Systems.
July 19th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Indeed, Phan and Jack who commented previously on the folly of Heartland’s attempts are correct in their viewpoints. It it utterly amusing, ironic and borderline shameful that a company who has suffered arguably the worst data breach in the history of commerce is deciding to protect and guarantee a breach of any kind. “Dear Mr. Heartland. This is ridicules.”