The Target hack, which became public knowledge on Wednesday, looks to be one of the biggest retail data breaches up to this point. Over 40 million customers have potentially been impacted, and it appears that cyber criminals are already using some of the stolen credit card information to fraudulently purchase goods and services.
The retail sector appeals to cyber criminals because of its high concentration of payment card information. Though details are still sketchy, what is absolutely certain is that no retailer or other business can be completely safe from this type of activity, no matter how stringent their security.
At least one lawsuit has already been filed against Target, and there will certainly be more. The cost to Target for this breach, whether it was their fault or not, will go into the millions of dollars.
And it’s important to remember that while this is certainly a newsworthy event because of the massive volume of credit and debit card information stolen, data breaches of smaller proportions happen all the time too.