It’s another week and yet another cyber hacking story is in the news that has consumers grabbing their wallets and wading through a barrage of emails, texts and phone call alerts that they are at risk.

When a retailer or institution is compromised the vicious time consuming job of protecting oneself falls to the individual consumer.

The compromised card is turned off. The new card is generated, mailed and activated. Pin numbers and passwords are changed and the calls begin to every vendor that has been set up to use that former card for some sort of bill or auto pay.

The monitoring of credit reports for the next year becomes a common and re-occurring household activity.

Last week the announcement that the local credit union we have used for over 20 years and the very specific ATM for that credit union that we also use was compromised by the discovery of a skimming device has my personal financial frustration with this outdated technology at an all-time high.

October 2015 is coming. This is a self-imposed and mutually agreed upon deadline that has been set by two of the major players in the credit card industry.

You may have heard of them, they are VISA and Mastercard.

The swipe and sign magnetic strip technology that we are so familiar with today will instead switch to smart cards that have a micro-chip imbedded into them. These cards are then inserted into a new type of card reader. Some will still allow for signatures, others will use a PIN number to complete the transaction.

These smart cards generate a one-time code for each transaction which throws a wrench in would-be thieves’ abilities to turn account numbers into useable counterfeit cards.

Most of Europe has already made the switch to the smart card technology.

A recent trip to Canada this summer revealed to me firsthand just how easy and secure these types of transactions were with the merchants located there.

The processing machines that they now use have the capability of dealing with both types of card technology are small handheld units with simple to follow instructions.

The United States is the last major market that still uses the old fashioned swipe and sign and banks and retailers have resisted what will be a major infrastructure investment to them of new machines and the background software that support them.

The tipping point has come this past year in the financial loss to retailer’s reputations, brand names and an overall reduction in the trust of consumers with those retailers who have already had significant security breaches.

It is time to chip. Some inconveniences that will be experienced during the changeover will be well worth it and much less costly to everyone in the long run.

Let your financial institutions and retailers know that you support the change to smart card technology.

Colleen Smidt is a longtime resident of Bremerton who writes weekly about community and political matters that affect residents in Kitsap County.