Credit Company Standard: Friend of Foe?

The three major credit companies are banding together to put all our eggs in one basket.  On many levels this kind of uniformity makes sense as it likely means more resources are being put on the problem, the consumers of the credit information are less likely to make mistakes associated with trying to juggle three different implementations and there will be more focused scrutiny on this unified security, but it also means that if you crack one, you get them all.  A friend of mine who is very active in the developer and security community, Phil, forwarded me the article from Eweek that outlined the effort in very vague terms.  Overall I think it is a good step, but as with all things secure, there are very few solid patches of ground.

We do the best we can, but it is very important for those that hold our information for us (whether we like it or not) to do the best they can.