Not a week goes by without headline-grabbing news about a large company, university or government agency that has suffered a data breach potentially impacting thousands, if not millions of Americans. At an alarming rate, consumers' personal information is being exploited through credit card fraud and a host of identity theft schemes. The financial impact on credit unions is growing.

According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, since February 2005, when data-mining company ChoicePoint divulged that it had accidentally sold data on 145,000 consumers to criminals, there have been more than 100 million instances in which Americans have had their personal data compromised due to data breaches and related mishaps.

Of course, all of those breaches translate into additional costs for credit unions. CUNA Mutual Group estimates that credit unions lost approximately $100 million in each of the last two years due to plastic card fraud. NAFCU's own Flash survey, conducted last month, found that 27% of credit unions responding reported one or more data breaches in the last year, and 86% said they had to replace credit, debit or ATM cards as a result. The average replacement cost per credit card was $6.60.