Having heard reports of unusually frequent card fraud from customers of Neiman Marcus’s upmarket brick-and-mortar outlets, Brian Krebs, publisher of KrebsonSecurity.com, approached the retailer to ask for further information. And, in a Jan. 10 post, Krebs revealed that the company had acknowledged that it is working with the Secret Service and an external forensics firm to investigate a possible breach of its database of customer debit and credit card data.

Little hard information is available at the time of this writing, but, in a statement to Krebs, the company acknowledged that:

1. It first learned of a possible problem in mid-December.
2. It was told by its forensic consultants on Jan. 1 of “a criminal cyber-security intrusion and that some customers’ cards were possibly compromised as a result.”
3. It was working to contain the intrusion, and to enhance its information security infrastructure.

Target problem bigger than feared

On the same day the Neiman Marcus breach came to light, it emerged that Target’s data security issues were much worse than had previously been thought. Instead of just data for about 40 million card accounts having been compromised, it’s now believed that up to 110 million customers may have been affected, according to Associated Press reports.

The additional 70 million victims only had their personal information — not card data — hacked. This could include names, email and street addresses, and phone numbers.

If you are concerned that any of your debit or credit card accounts may be at risk, access them online frequently so you can quickly identify and report unauthorized charges. If you’re worried about your personal information being used for identity fraud, consider signing up for a service that offers ongoing access to your credit report.

Published 01/15/14