Holiday Shoppers Find Ways To Protect Themselves In Wake Of Data Breaches

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Holiday shoppers are taking some extra precautions this year after a number of companies reported data breaches.

Dave Brennan, a marketing professor at St. Thomas, told WCCO Radio's Roshini Rajkumar that people are being more careful.

"Generally speaking, people are moving away from debit cards, and protected credit cards and even more they are using cash," Brennan said. "One of the things we have discovered is that people are checking their statements carefully and that really makes sense as we go through this period."

He says the hackers have not been able to penetrate the online retailers.

"Store-based retailers need to see what the online retailers are doing as far as putting up fire walls to protect the information." he said

Brennan says they surveyed hundreds of people about their shopping plans, and also about their attitudes about the recent data breaches.