The company later learned thieves had used the store's wireless networks to access systems at its Massachusetts headquarters that were used to store data related to payment card, cheque and return transactions at stores across the country, and that criminals had made off with data from more than 45 million customer credit and debit cards. In 2007, retailer TJX announced that its systems had been breached by hackers. Large retailer breaches in the past may help explain what happened in this case. But sources from the two major card issuers said they have so far been notified by one of the credit card associations regarding more than 1 million cards that were thought to have been compromised.Ī third source at a data breach investigation firm said it appeared that "when all is said and done, this one will put its mark up there with some of the largest retail breaches to date." It's not clear how many cards thieves may have stolen in the breach. If the thieves also were able to intercept PIN data for debit transactions, they would theoretically be able to reproduce stolen debit cards and use them to withdraw cash from ATMs. The type of data stolen – also known as "track data" – allows criminals to create counterfeit cards by encoding the information onto any card with a magnetic stripe. There are no indications at this time that the breach affected customers who shopped at Target's online stores. "We can't say for sure that all stores were impacted, but we do see customers all over the US that were victimised." "The breach window is definitely expanding," said one anti-fraud analyst at a top 10 US bank card issuer who asked to remain anonymous. But over the past few days, investigators have unearthed evidence that the breach extended at least an additional week – possibly as far as December 15.Īccording to sources, the breach affected an unknown number of Target customers who shopped at the company’s bricks-and-mortar stores during that timeframe. Both sources said the breach was initially thought to have extended from just after the Thanksgiving holiday on November 28 to December 6.
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