Category Archives: Data Breaches

Stories about data breaches at retailers, corporations, governments and organizations of all sizes.

Breach Blind Spot Puts Retailers on Defensive

February 28, 2014
69 Comments

In response to rumors in the financial industry that Sears may be the latest retailer hit by hackers, the company said today it has no indications that it has been breached. Although the Sears investigation is ongoing, experts say there is a good chance the identification of Sears as a victim is a false alarm caused by a common weaknesses in banks’ anti-fraud systems that becomes apparent mainly in the wake of massive breaches like the one at Target late last year.

Fire Sale on Cards Stolen in Target Breach

February 19, 2014
47 Comments

Last year’s breach at Target Corp. flooded underground markets with millions of stolen credit and debit cards. In the days surrounding the breach disclosure, the cards carried unusually high price tags — in large part because few banks had gotten around to canceling any of them yet. Today, two months after the breach, the number of unsold stolen cards that haven’t been cancelled by issuing banks is rapidly shrinking, forcing the miscreants behind this historic heist to unload huge volumes of cards onto underground markets and at cut-rate prices.

Target Hackers Broke in Via HVAC Company

February 5, 2014
268 Comments

Last week, Target told reporters at The Wall Street Journal and Reuters that the initial intrusion into its systems was traced back to network credentials that were stolen from a third party vendor. Sources now tell KrebsOnSecurity that the vendor in question was a refrigeration, heating and air conditioning subcontractor that has worked at a number of locations at Target and other top retailers.

New Clues in the Target Breach

January 29, 2014
132 Comments

An examination of the malware used in the Target breach suggests that the attackers may have taken advantage of a poorly secured feature built into a widely-used IT management software product that was running on the retailer’s internal network.

A Closer Look at the Target Malware, Part II

January 16, 2014
145 Comments

Yesterday’s story about the point-of-sale malware used in the Target attack has prompted a flood of reporting from antivirus and security vendors. Buried within those reports are some interesting details that speak to possible actors involved and to the timing and discovery of this breach.

A First Look at the Target Intrusion, Malware

January 15, 2014
202 Comments

Last weekend, Target finally disclosed at least one cause of the massive data breach that exposed personal and financial information on more than 110 million customers: Malicious software that infected point-of-sale systems at Target checkout counters. Today’s post includes new information about the malware apparently used in the attack, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter.

Who’s Selling Credit Cards from Target?

December 24, 2013
269 Comments

The previous two posts on this blog have featured stories about banks buying back credit and debit card accounts stolen in the Target hack and that ended up for sale on rescator[dot]la, a popular underground store. Today’s post looks a bit closer at open-source information on a possible real-life identity for the proprietor of that online fraud shop.