Target customers were seeing red over the company’s data breach, venting anger online and in person on Thursday, with one suggesting a new company slogan: “Expect More. Except Security.”
News that computer hackers may have stolen data from some 40 million Target-issued credit and debit cards used in stores from Nov. 27 until Dec. 15 shook up customers shopping the store aisles.
At a Target store in Mission, Kan., shopper John Hallock said he was reluctant to use credit cards because of security concerns.
“I am wary all the time,” he said. “This makes it worse.”
“If I go to Target, it will be cash only. If they knew about it and didn’t say anything, I think they did the customers a disservice, I really do,” he said.
Target, the third-largest US retailer, said it was working with federal law enforcement and outside experts to prevent similar attacks in the future. It did not disclose how its systems were compromised.
Target confirmed that data for about 40 million debit and credit cards may have been wrongfully accessed in recent weeks and that law enforcement is investigating the matter.
Authorities and financial institutions were alerted immediately, the Minneapolis-based company said Thursday in a statement. The US Secret Service said Wednesday that it was probing the incident, and two states’ attorneys general said Thursday that they’ve begun inquiries.
Target’s challenges come as US retailers gear up for the end of a holiday shopping season that ShopperTrak predicts will be the slowest since 2009. The last thing Target needs as rivals pour on discounts in a last-ditch grab for market share is for its customers to wonder if they should use their cards, said Ken Perkins, an analyst for Morningstar in Chicago.
“The timing could be a concern, especially only a few days before Christmas,” he said.
Target, which has 1,797 stores in the US and 124 in Canada, fell 2.2 percent, to $62.14, at the close in New York. The stock has gained 5 percent this year, compared with a 42 percent gain for Standard & Poor’s 500 Retailing Index.
The breach occurred when a computer virus infected Target’s point-of-sale terminals where shoppers swipe a credit or debit card to make a purchase, said a person familiar with the matter. Molly Snyder, a spokeswoman for Target, didn’t respond to a request for comment on the cause.
Target learned of the breach on Dec. 15 and then told the authorities, Snyder said. It didn’t disclose the issue until after the breach became public because it was focused on starting the investigation, she said.
If the information on cards’ magnetic strips was stolen, it would be one of the largest breaches of that kind of data in US history while also shining a light on a need to update technology, said Dan Kaminsky, co-founder and chief scientist at White Ops, a cybersecurity firm in New York.
With Post Wires