Target Hit by Credit-Card Breach

U.S. retailer Target said Thursday that the credit and debit card information of as many as 40 million customers was compromised over three weeks of the holiday shopping season - one of the largest breaches ever of American consumer data. The breach was thought to have begun around Black Friday, on November 27th and was only brought to a close on December 15th. Cybercriminals had accessed customer names, credit or debit card numbers, expiration dates and three-digit security codes for customers who had shopped at its stores. Fortunately, online customers were not affected by the breach, which appears to have been isolated to the point-of-sale systems in Target's retail stores.

 The company said it immediately told authorities and financial institutions once it became aware of the breach and that it is teaming with a third- party forensics firm to investigate the matter. It said it is putting all "appropriate resources" toward the issue.

The systems, used by Target and thousands of other stores across America to process card transactions, are an optimum target for cybercriminals, and they are often thought to involve company employees. The complicit worker would have to insert malware into the computer system processing the sales, or could have been encouraged to click a link which resulted in the downloading of malware.

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