The massive holiday hacking of consumer information belonging to Target and Neiman Marcus customers has the impacted retailers under a microscope. State Attorneys General across the country have banded together to launch a “national investigation” into the data breaches that, in the case of Target, impacted approximately 70 million customers. The U.S. Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security are conducting their own investigations and have partnered with private-sector executives to identify the perpetrators, most recently believed to be teenage Russian cyberthieves.

Within weeks of the Target data breach announcement, lawmakers on Capitol Hill introduced legislation designed to address the issue of data security to better protect Americans’ personal information and ensure their privacy. Legislation aimed at creating a national standard to protect consumer data is nothing new, but this time the legislation may gain traction.