The number of Target customers who were affected by the massive credit breach the company experienced over Black Friday is still growing by the day, with the information of about 110 million customers compromised at last count. According to their CEO Gregg Steinhafel this morning, the breach was done through malware that had been installed at their point of sale registers, as initially suspected by experts in the field.
The company was hit with two separate cyber-attacks, a breach has put the credit details of 40 million Target customers at serious risk, and put 70 million additional customers’ names, physical addresses, email addresses and even phone numbers at risk. There might be overlap between the two attacks, and cyber-security experts such as Vormetic CEO Alan Kessler believe that the second attack demonstrates that the virtual thieves got past just registers, as additional information is stored on other servers.
Source Mashable
This apology letter was featured in the New York Daily News , and shows the beginning of Target’s efforts to clean up the breach and its effects.
“Clearly, we're accountable, and we're responsible. But we're gonna come out at the end of this a better company,” saud Steinhafel said during a CNBC interview. “And we're gonna make significant changes.”
The first of them is probably safeguarding against malware such as this, and Steinhafel is also advocating for EMV technology as well as a chip and PIN system to replace magnetic strips, the main way the thieves stole customer information.
While confirming how the attacks were completed is definitely a step forward, there is still no information whatsoever on the identity of the thieves.
Source Mashable
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