How secure is your card info?

The question is a simple one but the answer might appear to be a bit harder to pin down.

VeriSign, a firm that secures websites for e-commerce, told the BBC that credit and debit card information is "vulnerable" but they are working with retailers to change that.

"Credit and debit card information is just not incredibly secure," said Perry Tancredi, VeriSign's senior product manager for fraud detection.

"But it is counterbalanced by the amount of fraud losses due to cheque fraud and direct debit fraud which is much greater than credit card fraud."

Mr Tancredi said: "Regardless of how strong the security measures, and how vigilant, the weak part of the chain is there is always a human who is responsible and who has overall control over the information."

He suggested the best bet was for all consumers to "assume that there will be some sort of fraud on your account sooner or later" and put in place a plan to deal with it.

'Getting safer'

Espousing a completely different view is Jerry Tabeling who is the president of IDP, a company that carries out vulnerability assessments of networks and online business applications.

"Our information is a lot more secure after all the publicity we have had about attacks," he said.

"But yes there are still problems that still exist though it is getting safer." These, Mr Tabeling told the BBC, tend to centre around a retailer not doing a good enough job securing its network.

"If the proper encryption is configured on the wireless access point, then an attacker will not be able to get any information. I would have to bet in this case that didn't happen."