DAVOS, Switzerland - Financial companies are engaged in a escalating battle with increasingly sophisticated criminal organizations and some governments trying to hack into electronic payment systems, MasterCard’s top executive said Friday.
Speaking on a panel at the World Economic Forum, Ajay Banga, the president and chief executive of MasterCard, said the fight to keep financial transaction systems secure was a costly and time-consuming one that was potentially unsustainable over time without government help.
“You can only be as good as this second,†Mr. Banga said. “Someone is trying to break in.â€
That was brought into focus recently as the retailers Target and Neiman Marcus disclosed that cybercriminals were able to use malware to infiltrate their systems and steal data on millions of consumers.
Hikmet Ersek, the president and chief executive of the Western Union Company, described it as a “street fight.â€
Mr. Ersek said financial firms were deploying teams of information technology professionals to act as “police†against hackers, but it was a constant battle.
Sendhil Mullainathan, the Harvard University economics professor, said the prospect of information theft was particularly frightening because it could take months before you learned that your data had been stolen.
And, unlike securing your possessions in a locker at the gym, it’s not readily apparent how to protect your data, Mr. Mullainathan said.
