On Monday retailer Home Depot
acknowledged that they were victims of a hacking attack that
stretched all the way back to April. The attack affected the payment
system of the over 2,000 stores in the United States & Canada.
The breach left the credit, debit and other customer information
vulnerable over a 4 month period.
The security breach was first brought
to Home Depot's attention when banks and law enforcement agencies
alerted the retailer, on September 2, of suspicious activity. The
retailer quickly joined forces with security experts and the secret
service to launched an investigation into the situation. That
investigation has not discovered how the breach happened or just how
many customers have had their credit or debit information
compromised. The one thing that have concluded at this point is that
the breach did not seem to affect an customer that shopped online.
“While the company continues to
determine the full scope, scale and impact of the breach, there is no
evidence that debit PIN numbers were
compromised,” The company said in a statement.
They went on to add, “We apologize for the frustration and anxiety
this causes our customers, and I want to thank them for their
patience and support as we work through this issue,” said Frank
Blake, chairman and CEO. “We owe it to our customers to alert them
that we now have enough evidence to confirm that a breach has indeed
occurred. It’s important to emphasize that no customers will be
responsible for fraudulent charges to their accounts.”
The home improvement retailer is
offering identity, credit & debit card monitoring to any customer
that used their payment system during the 4 month period. They are
also advising that anyone that has shopped in the store between the
beginning of April and September 2 should pay close attention to
their credit card & bank statements.
When Target stores faced a similar
breach over the holiday season last year it was discovered and fixed
after 3 weeks. That breach affected the information of over40 million
customer. With Home Depot having more locations and the breach
lasting 4 months has the potential of this problem be much bigger.
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