Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Target Hit by Credit-Card Breach over Black Friday Weekend

Business Insider reports that Target is investigating a possible data breach that could involve millions of customers' credit and debit card information. According to journalist Brian Krebs - who cites "multiple reliable sources," - the breach appears to have affected Target stores nationwide and may happened over the course of several days on or around Black Friday.

"The breach window is definitely expanding," a source identified as an anti-fraud analyst at a top-10 U.S. bank card issuer told Krebs. "We can’t say for sure that all stores were impacted, but we do see customers all over the U.S. that were victimized."

And as of this writing, Consumerist reports that the U.S. Secret Service confirmed to the Wall St. Journal that it is investigating the data breach that is believed to have taken advantage of a vulnerability in the network of some 40,000 card-scanning devices at Target stores nationwide. I wonder if that's why the clerk at the San Mateo, CA store today asked me to scan my card personally, saying all the card scanners in the store were down - ?

5 comments:

floating thru fields said...

it's definitely worrisome, i know a lot people shop at target frequently for groceries and everything else.
and even more so at Christmas time, it's just scary :(
hopefully everything can be sorted out effectively

Target Addict said...

Floating: I agree. It's very distressing. The only thing we can do is keep checking our accounts for any unusual activity. And keep in mind that now that this has broken out in the news, the identity thieves will probably "wait" to sell the confidential info until the media blitz blows over. Meaning: we need to be diligent and keep checking our accounts for months to come.

tina said...

I had $2300 worth of unauthorized charges on my AMEX. Two charges--$1300 at Microsoft and $1000 at Best Buy (and I HATE Best Buy). The charges were within an hour of each other. Check your accounts!!

Target Addict said...

Tina, that's awful! But good for you for checking your account and finding the fraudulent charges so fast. Guess we ALL need to keep doing that!

tina said...

Fortunately, American Express removed those charges immediately! I used my card at Target three times during the period they were hacked!