America's Thrift Store Breach Week 7

Entering week seven there has been a credit card breach at America’s Thrift Stores. America’s Thrift Stores headquarters is based in Birmingham, Alabama and also have stores in Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia and Louisiana (Krebs, 2015). They have a total of 18 stores throughout the states listed above. Hackers are now targeting any businesses that have vulnerabilities to get credit card or any personal information from. No one is safe from attackers or malware no matter how big or small.

America’s Thrift Store was attacked by malware that was used to steal credit card information. This special malware targeted a third party software vulnerability. The malware that attacked America’s Thrift Store also has been infecting other stores throughout the United States. It seems that the malware was used by criminals in Eastern Europe, because that’s where the U.S Secret Service found the information was sent too. The hackers only got away with credit card numbers and expiration dates of the cards. The incident happen on September 1, 2015 and September 27 (LeClaire, 2015).  America’s Thrift Store is not going to give their customers any credit monitoring protection. America’s Thrift Store has verified they have removed the malware and will work with a third party forensic company to get more details about the breach.

The surprise this week is that malware was used to steal credit card information. In the past six weeks hackers have broken in to steal personal information, but haven’t used malware. Another interesting part of the story is that the malware targeted third party software. Most companies today are eliminating third party providers. Target was hacked through their HVAC company they hired. From experience most companies should stay away from integrating third party providers in with their software and network as this adds more risk to having a breach. The good thing is customer names, phone numbers, physical or e-mail addresses were not compromised in the breach (LeClaire, 2015).

References

Krebs, B. (2015, October 12). Krebs on Security. Retrieved October 17, 2015, from http://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/10/credit-card-breach-at-americas-thrift-stores/

LeClaire, J. (2015, October 14). America's Thrift Stores Hit by Data Breach, Payment Cards Compromised | NewsFactor Network. Retrieved October 17, 2015, from http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=0320011MKY80