Payment card data was stolen from an unknown number of Target Corp. customers starting on the busy Black Friday weekend in a major breach at the U.S. retailer, and the incident is being investigated by the U.S. Secret Service.
The incident is believed to have affected all Target stores nationwide from Black Friday (November 29, 2013) through Sunday, December 15, 2013.
The breach could potentially involve millions of customer credit cards and debit cards. The type of data stolen was from the “track data” which includes customer names, car expiration date, the service code, the primary account number and other data.
Obtaining the track data, likely possible by installation of malicious software somewher in the credit card payment system, allows offenders to create counterfeit credit cards and debit cards by encoding the information onto any card with a magnetic stripe. Offenders would need to intercept PIN data for debit transactions, to create or use stolen debit cards and use them to withdraw cash from ATMs.
As of Wednesday, December 18, 2013, Target has no press release or notice on their official website or the official Target Twitter account.
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