It doesn’t matter if your last name is Cratchit and Mr. Scrooge has you crunching numbers for 18 hours in an unheated cubby. You’re still having a better Christmas than Molly Snyder is.
Snyder is the Target spokeswoman who has had to reveal almost daily more bad news related to the stores’ big security breach.
On Tuesday, it turned out that the hackers who compromised up to 40 million credit cards and debit cards also managed to steal encrypted PIN numbers, a senior payments executive familiar with the situation told Reuters.
One major bank fears that the thieves would be able to crack the encryption code and make fraudulent withdrawals from consumer bank accounts, said the executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Snyder responded, “No unencrypted PIN data was accessed” and there was no evidence that PIN data has been “compromised.” She confirmed that some “encrypted data” was stolen, but declined to say if that included encrypted PINs.
Target also faces almost two dozen lawsuits over the breach, and Snyder said the company has learned of incidents of scam emails related to the data spill.
Unsurprisingly, brokerage Cowen and Co. cut its earnings forecast for Target, saying the breach was likely to drive away customers and impact margins as the retailer increases discounts.
Target’s is the second-largest data breach in retail history. The Secret Service and the Justice Department are investigating. Officials with both agencies have declined to comment.
How Molly Snyder must envy them.