Hacked account of a supplier was identified as the cause of the Home Depot's security breach-dubbed as the second largest theft of credit card details in the world.
American Retailer giant experienced a major security issue regarding credit cards last Sept. 2. Involving 56 million credit cards-dubbed as the biggest data breach in retail history. Aside from that, another 53 million emails were also affected by the breach, recent reports say.
The breach happened in the U.S. and Canadian stores. Further investigation revealed that malware has compromised Home Depot's payment system. Multiple banks have reported suspicious activity coming from millions of credit and debit cards reportedly sold by Home Depot stores.
According to the report, hackers penetrated the system using stolen credentials from a third-party vendor-which allowed them to access Home Depot's network including its self checkout machines in U.S. an Canada, where they put malicious software in the retail store's system.
Home Depot has removed the malware from the U.S. and Canadian stores and implemented increased security measures that "provide enhanced encryption of payment data at point of sale throughout our U.S. stores," according to the e-mail sent to its customers last September.
Home Depot, while providing the latest updates over the investigation in to the said breach has stated that the compromised file containing the email addresses did not contain passwords or any other significant personal information that can be used for hacking purposes.
Home Depot has not given details whatsoever with regards to the identity of the said supplier. However, just the mere claim implies how important it is for the entire supply chain to pay ample attention to information security.
For the record, this happens to be the second time that such a significant data breach has affected a US retailer using a compromised supplier.
Back in 2012, Home Depot hired a computer engineer to help manage the cybersecurity of 2,200 of its stores. The same engineer was put into prison for reportedly disabling computers at the company he worked for before.
Recently, the company was just putting up a security system while the breach was happening. Fortunately, 2,000 Home Depot stores are now safe and secure.
