NEW YORK — Consumers gearing up for the holiday season may havereceived a reason to think twice about using their credit or debitcard at a retailer this year after the popular CBS news program 60Minutes aired a story about retailers and card security.

The story, which aired on Nov. 25, used the TJX card breach asan example of what can go wrong when retailers do not paysufficient heed to card security. The program also revealed detailsabout the breach which have not been yet disclosed in the U.S.,such as e-mails from some executives in TJX warning that thecompany was vulnerable to hacking if it did not upgrade its cardsecurity technology.

TJX is the parent company of the TJ Maxx, Marshalls and otherretail chains in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom.Curiously, a spokesman from the National Retail Federation appearedon the program and suggested that the fault for the card securitybreaches rests with the card brands and issuers since they were theones that “forced” retailers to hold onto cardholder data for atleast some time to address chargebacks.