If you re a Home Depot shopper, you better keep a close eye on your credit card and bank statements.
The giant hardware retailer on Monday confirmed that its payment system had been hacked, potentially exposing the credit and debit card numbers of millions of customers. The security breach affected its U.S. and Canadian stores from April onward, the company said in a statement.
Home Depot said it s still assessing how many accounts might have affected by the hack and the amount of data stolen.
We apologize for the frustration and anxiety this causes our customers, and I want to thank them for their patience and support as we work through this issue, Frank Blake, Home Depot s chairman and CEO, said in the statement.
The hack of Home Depot s system may be related to a similar breach of Target last year, security researcher Brian Krebs reported Sunday. At least some of Home Depot s systems were attacked with a variation on the same malware that exposed some 40 million credit and debit accounts at Target, Krebs said. Cards apparently stolen from Home Depot first were offered for sale on Rescator, a black market site that also sold millions of card numbers purloined in the Target attack, he said.
The first reports of a potential breach at Home Depot started trickling in last week. The company said it has been investigating the matter since then.
Home Depot will offer customers free access to credit monitoring services in response to the hack. The company said it didn t believe that the breach affected customers of its Mexico stores or its online site.
Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.
