Payment Card Newsflash #025

9/9/2014
Home-improvement retailer Home Depot officially confirmed a data breach on Monday. Home Depot’s investigation is focused on transactions made as far back as April and affecting all of Home Depot’s 2,200 stores in the United States
There is no evidence that shoppers’ debit PIN numbers were compromised, according to a statement the retailer released Monday. Analysts warned that the Home Depot breach could rival Target’s massive breach last year.
The company said it is working aggressively to root out the malware that infected its data systems and protect its customer data, but stopped short of addressing when or whether the breach had ended.

Home Depot has assured customers they won’t be responsible for any fraudulent charges on their credit or debit cards and has promised to offer free identity-protection services, including credit monitoring, to any affected customers.

Card-issuing banks so far haven’t alerted their customers to potential fraud or reissued cards because of the Home Depot incident. The banks are scouring their customer databases to determine a common thread among any fraudulent transactions that have occurred.