Originally published in Law360, New York (June 29, 2012, 1:04 PM ET)

The recent data breach at Global Payments Inc., which has contracts to handle the processing of credit and debit card transactions, has again focused attention on the significant risk associated with storing or transmitting confidential data.

That breach potentially has compromised the accounts of over a million cardholders, and the company recently announced that the intruders may have accessed personal information of its merchant customers, in addition to account numbers, expiration dates and security codes of cardholders. At least one lawsuit regarding the breach already has been filed.

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