Well, it's not only that. Technically it's helping a lot. Because often there is dedicated hardware with it's own certified software which deals with all card d

Well, it's not only that. Technically it's helping a lot. Because often there is dedicated hardware with it's own certified software which deals with all card data. So the POS PC doesn't get anything else than the transaction identifier and confirmation of the payment. Therefore, what ever malware is running on the PC, can't access the card data at all. Without this arrangement, I'm sure we would have seen a lot more of credit card data thefts. Especially from smaller stores which do not care about security at all. You can ask your local non-chain random el cheapo Pizza Kebab about their IT department and security standards they're utilizing. ;) Actually I've been planning this for a while, it would be fun. Even stores which rent videos, should have documentation (by law) about how their customer register data is stored, protected and used etc. I'm quite sure there are many stores which do not have that.