Giant retailer Home Depot confirmed Monday the data breach in their payment systems, resulting to millions of affected cardholders.
Home Depot won't confirm the specific cope of the data theft that affected all their stores in the U.S. and Canada are affected. The company said, however, that their investigation reaches as far back as April of this year up to last week. The hacking is posed to be the largest in history.
Last week, cybersecurity blogger reported on Krebs on Security the suspected data breach in the furniture retailer, clearly similar to the Target hack late last year. Two batches of credit card details were sold online, and multiple bank companies have pointed to Target as the source of the stolen card information.
In a press release, Home Depot Chairman and CEO said, "We apologize for the frustration and anxiety this causes our customers, and I want to thank them for their patience and support as we work through this issue." They cleared that online transactions in HomeDepot.com and the stores in Mexico aren't affected by the breach.
The company offered free identity theft protection and credit monitoring services to anyone who has shopped in any other stores during the period of data thefy. They said that they are working with two security companies, Symantec and FishNet Security, to investigate.
Eric W. Cowperthwaite, vice-president of Core Security, said that Home Depot is in trouble as the hacking went on for five months undetected. There are 400 more affected stores than Target. "This is not how you handle a significant security breach, nor will it provide any sort of confidence that Home Depot can solve the problem going forward," said Cowperthwaite.
Home Depot is the latest among the main retailers that have fallen prey to hackers. The Target data breach is the second largest as it disclosed in December the theft of 40-million credit and debit card information.
