It would be a fascinating match of wits, if there wasn’t so much at stake: Businesses trying to outfox hackers’  latest threats to transaction security.

Just when you think the big picture is covered, cyberhoods start poking around the cracks to see if they can pry anything open.

Fortunately, the good guys keep coming up with good ideas to keep you — and your transactions — out of reach for ne’er do-wells.

This time around, there’s a wrinkle: A system that can encrypt cardholder data to protect it between the transaction terminal and the merchant host.

This is just the kind of innovation that businesses accepting magnetic-stripe cards have been hoping for, offering an additional security layer.

The company promoting the innovation bills it as an open standard for merchants and acquirers. It’s not necessary to purchase a proprietary decryption package in order to adopt it, or risk integrating new, unproven encryption technology.

For information, you can contact the company offering the product: Ingenico, at www.ingenico-us.com

Tags: account number, cardholder data, encrypt, transaction security