In Massachusetts, Attorney General Martha Coakley is hoping to force significant changes to the manner in which companies are allowed to collect, store, and protect sensitive consumer data.

"[Coakley] is looking at a number of issues and working with the legislature to see what types of measures we can implement to better protect consumers," said Melissa Sherman, Coakley's press secretary.

But security and privacy experts agree that new laws, in themselves, won't prevent a repeat of the data breach experienced by TJX, which continues to increase in scope. And that the hack of that retailer's network should provide a chilling lesson to businesses that are failing to adequately safeguard their sensitive information.

As illustrated by the retailer's continued discovery of new incidents of IT systems intrusion, enterprises that don't have sufficient security tools in place will have a hard time simply piecing together the details of what has happened when their data is attacked, industry watchers observed.

On Feb. 21, Framingham, Mass.-based TJX announced that it had discovered a new set of IT systems intrusions that exposed the personally identifiable information of an undetermined number of its customers.