More Retailers Were Victims of a Data Breach. Have You Looked at Your Accounts Lately?

On Dec. 19, Target was a victim of a data breach that initially affected a reported 40 million credit cards, but was later revised when investigators revealed that 70 million customers were affected. Neiman Marcus was also a victim of a cyber attack, and a new report by Reuters says that there are other retailers that were affected by smaller breaches, but those stores have remained unnamed:

Avivah Litan, a security analyst for Stamford, Connecticut-based Gartner information technology research firm, said she learned about a separate set of breaches, dating back no more than a few months before the November 28 Thanksgiving Day start of the holiday shopping season, from a forensics investigator. She declined to provide his name.

“Target was not the only retailer who got hit, but they got hit the biggest,” Litan said.

Investigators believe that the early series of attacks on retailers staged before late November were mostly used as trial attacks to help the hackers perfect new techniques they then used against Target, stealing payment cards at unprecedented speed, Litan said.

My mother called me the other night to tell me about charges made to her credit card that she didn’t make, and asked me what she should do about it. I told her to call the customer service number on the back of the card, and after a 10-minute call she was able to get the charges removed. She said it wasn’t very much of a hassle to clear up. I’m sure customer service lines have been really busy lately. Have any of you been affected by the breach?

Photo: Angela N.

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