With the increase in identity theft and fraud, credit card companies are making a concentrated effort to improve compliance rates. Merchants now face fines or loss of privileges to use the card brand if an audit shows noncompliance. Forrester's IT security and risk management team fielded 1,816 inquiries on a variety of security-related topics between September 2007 and October 2008 — 63 of which came from end user IT professionals interested in PCI compliance. Almost half of these PCI-related inquiries were looking for a greater understanding of the specific PCI DSS requirements. Forrester clients also expressed an interest in finding the right vendor to help with PCI compliance and learning more about different PCI-related technologies.