Last week, OfficeMax became the focus of reports of the debit card fraud wave that had resulted in over 200,000 debit cards needing to be replaced by Bank of America, Citibank, and Washington Mutual. Visa and MasterCard had both acknowledged that a merchant had been the target of a data theft, although neither would identify the merchant. Police reports, however, have shown that the common denominator in the vast majority of the 200,000+ victims of the fraud wave had shopped at OfficeMax.

More recently, Visa issued a warning to retailers that a certain version of some Fujitsu debit card transaction software may be storing sensitive customer data, including PIN codes. Fujitsu Transactions Solutions' customers include Best Buy, Staples, and ... OfficeMax. Although, it is unknown whether or not these retailers are using the allegedly faulty version of the software. Could Fujitsu actually be to blame for the debit card fraud?

Neither OfficeMax nor Fujitsu are taking responsibility for the security breach. Fujitsu claims that no sensitive data could be stored by its software alone; additional tweaks would have to be made to the programs. OfficeMax claims that they had found no evidence of any data theft on their end. So the mystery continues.

Most likely, the breach will be traced to some source in due time. Meanwhile, it is baffling to see that there could possibly be such a huge crack in the system of debit card security. Especially with identity theft becoming more and more prevalent, one would think that retailers and software developers would take extra precautions to ensure that their customers were being taken care of. Ultimately, the responsibility lies with the retailer. No matter at which exact point in the chain the security breach occurred, it is the retailer's responsibility to seal these cracks. They are the ones with whom the customer has the relationship and they are the ones who will take the brunt of the poor PR should something like this happen. I know one thing for sure: I won't be using my check card at OfficeMax any time soon.