US home-improvement retailer Home Depot is investigating “unusual activity” regarding its customer data, following a report by investigative security journalist Brian Krebs that the company may have suffered a payment-card breach that started in April or May and that may affect all 2,200 US stores. He discovered details about the incident from a posting on a black market forum. Home Depot spokeswoman Paula Drake said if the company confirms that a breach has occurred, it will notify customers immediately. Krebs noted that it appears the hackers responsible “may be the same group of Russian and Ukrainian hackers responsible for [earlier] data breaches at Target, Sally Beauty, and P.F. Chang’s, among others.” . If the breach indeed began in late April or early May 2014, he added, “and if even a majority of Home Depot stores were compromised, this breach could be many times larger than [the] Target [incident], which had 40 million credit and debit cards stolen over a three-week period.” (BBC)(Krebs on Security)
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Friday, May 24, 2013
Taiwan Investigates Samsung Practices
Taiwanese fair-trade officials have reportedly launched an investigation into Samsung’s business practices after allegations surfaced that the South Korean technology company paid individuals to submit critical reviews of products by Taiwanese rival HTC. The company reportedly hired students to post unfavorable reviews of HTC phones and to suggest that consumers purchase unlocked Samsung handsets instead. Samsung hasn't formally responded to the charges. However, Samsung’s Taiwan Facebook page reportedly said that the company regretted any confusion and inconvenience its Internet marketing may have caused and that it “has halted all Internet marketing such as posting articles on websites.” If found guilty, Samsung could be fined up to 25 million Taiwanese dollars (about $840,000 at press time). (BBC)(InformationWeek)(TechCrunch)(AFP)
