We hear about
data breaches frequently in today’s society. Hackers are getting smarter and
working harder to steal information that can have crippling affects for
millions of cardholders. On Monday, Home Depot confirmed that they are not
exempt from this hacking predicament. You can find the retailer's first statement here.
Hackers broke
into the in-store payment system, potentially stealing up to 60 million credit
card numbers for Home Depot customers. This breach could be the largest known
of a retail company’s computer network. Home Depot has not yet confirmed other
details, but they do know the breach went unnoticed for as long as five months.
How does a
breach this large go unnoticed for such a long period of time? Home Depot is
not the only big retailer who has suffered a breach like this, but the response
time is unacceptable. Customers deserve secure transactions and Home Depot
failed to protect customers and failed to alert them of the breach in a timely
manner.
If Home Depot
does not take the necessary steps to fix this enormous problem, customers will
lose all trust and confidence in this retailer. The hole this fiasco has put
Home Depot in is going to be a tough one to get out of.
Currently, Home depot is offering affected customers free identity protection and credit-monitoring services due to the breach and for failing to alert customers in a timely manner. In my opinion, these services are not enough. This invasion of privacy and potential threat to millions is an ordeal that Home Depot needs to fix. I hope there is a good PR team on this retailer’s side because it is going to need it!
Hannah,
ReplyDeleteI had no idea about this happening; good thing I have not needed to go to Home Depot lately!
This is just amazing to me that millions of people could be at risk and for five months no less! How does that even happen? It seems like Home Depot just had blatant disregard for its security system or there wasn't steps to be sure that the security system could keep up with such a large company. Either way, financial security is a major aspect of a business; if I as a customer do not feel secure then I am definitely not going to be bringing my money to you. Which should be a no brainer anyway.
You're right though, there PR team is in for a lot of work trying to gain trust back.
This is a very interesting situation. It really bothers me that Home Depot let this go unnoticed for so long and that it happened after all of the other places had incidents that they could have learned from. I agree, the way that they are fixing it should only be a start to what they are doing. This problem is bigger than we probably even know. I will not be going to a Home Depot any time soon.
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