“The data breach that hit Target Corp. over the holidays was bigger than the company had previously said, affecting more systems and compromising a new set of personal information for 70 million people,” Paul Ziobro and Ben Fox Rubin report for The Wall Street Journal.
“Target said Friday that the new set of stolen information included some mix of names, mailing addresses, phone numbers and email addresses. The information was stored separately from the 40 million credit and debit card accounts that the discount chain had previously said were affected, indicating that a different system had been hacked,” Ziobro and Rubin report. “The retailer said there was some overlap between the two sets of stolen data but didn’t say how extensive it was. The entry point for the attack has been identified and closed, spokeswoman Molly Snyder said.”
“Target said just before Christmas that apparent thieves had broken into its point-of-sale system and stolen credit and debit card data in a hack that went on for two weeks, including the crucial Black Friday weekend after Thanksgiving,” Ziobro and Rubin report. “Target, along with the Secret Service, the U.S. Justice Department, and a forensic unit of Verizon Communications Inc., continue to investigate the breach. A number of states are looking into the breach as well. On Friday, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said the new disclosure was ‘deeply troubling.’ The retailer hasn’t provided any estimate of costs related to the breach, which could include reimbursements to card networks to cover fraud and the cost of issuing new cards, lawsuits and legal costs associated with the various investigations. The costs could significantly hurt the company’s results, Target said.”
Read more in the full article here.
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