The data breach at Citigroup last month created furor not just in the country, but all over the world. This was just another instance where the personal data of millions of customers was compromised before the fraud was detected and stopped. Among the cards that were stolen, up to $2.7 million was swiped using 3400 cards before the alarm bells started ringing.

This is just one of the many breaches that have taken place so far this year. The number of breaches this year for the first six months stood at 216 as compared to 333 instances last year during the same period. Javelin Strategy and Research that conducted a study in this field released a report that showed that among the innumerable lenders in the credit cards industry today, roughly a little more than a dozen banks that issues MasterCard and Visa credit cards to customers have relevant security measures in place to ensure no data compromise takes place. Two major lenders who fall under the safe issuers category are the US Bank and Bank of America. A number of smaller banks such as Sun Trust, Associated Bank and State Farm also made it to this list. This annual study, conducted prior to the data breach reports from CitiGroup, placed this bank at the ninth spot.

A number of factors were taken into consideration as a part of this study. Some of the major factors that played an important role are monitoring strategies, fraud alert availability and various security measures in place.