40 Million Credit Cards in Target Breach

Last week Target sent out letters to millions of customers informing them about unauthorized access to the accounts of customers who made credit or debit card purchases between November 27 and December 15.[1] It is estimated that 40 million credit and debit card accounts may have been impacted during the Target breach.[2] The breach of data impacted almost every Target location.

Target is currently investigating the attack and has also provided help to customers that were potentially impacted. This involves checking with credit card companies and credit agencies for any activity that appears fraudulent. If fraudulent activity has occurred, the customer should report it to the FTC, local authorities and credit reporting agencies.

According to Krebs, these stolen card numbers are already appearing on cybercriminal sites and are selling for $20 per card up to $100 per card. If the thieves also gain access to PIN numbers, they can potentially empty out customer accounts. It’s likely that banking institutions will begin reissuing new cards of potentially affected accounts in Target breach.

On Christmas Even, Brian Krebs identified one of the criminal sites involved in reselling card numbers. Krebs writes,

“Rescator[dot]la is run by a miscreant who uses the nickname Rescator, and who is a top member of the Russian and English language crime forum Lampeduza[dot]la. He operates multiple online stores that sell stolen card data, including rescator[dot]la, kaddafi[dot]hk, octavian[dot]su and cheapdumps[dot]org. Rescator also maintains a presence on several other carding forums, most notably cpro[dot]su and vor[dot]cc.”[3]

One of the possible culprits previously had posted goals of marrying, purchasing a $20,00 Toyota Solara and moving to Helinski. He wrote that in order to reach his goals he would “probably have to rob all the banks in the world.”

[1] See Target site
[2] Brian Krebs. “Sources: Target Investigating Data Breach.” Krebs on Security, Updated on December 19, 2013 .
[3] Brian Krebs. “Who’s Selling Credit Cards from Target?” Krebs On Security, December 24, 2013

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