The recent theft of customers' personal data at retailers like Target and Michaels has hastened the credit-card industry's shift to smart chips from magnetic stripes.

Credit-card fraud reached almost $5.3 billion in the United States during 2012, and the amount is growing 30 to 50 percent a year, according to the Aite Group research firm, The New York Times reports.

So there's obviously room for change. "I think this will become a defining moment about how we in the industry think about security," Eileen Serra, CEO of Chase Card Services, tells The Times.

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The smart chips are embedded in credit cards and confirm that the person using the card is its rightful owner. It's very difficult for thieves to make counterfeit copies of the chips, according to The Times.

Cardholders use a PIN number or signature to verify transactions. Signatures will likely be used more in the United States initially, The Times reports.

To be sure, chip cards are much more expensive than cards with a magnetic stripe, so issuers and retailers have been slow to adopt them.

A Washington Post editorial says technological change is long overdue for credit cards.

"Consumers in the United States have generally been shielded from liability for fraud on their cards and have grown complacent," Post editors write. "They ought to be angry at the industry's lag. Privacy needs to be protected."

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