Target Breach

Improved Essays
Most people can remember the Target breach, whether they were affected by it or not. Personally, this was the first big data breach that I remember, and I was one of the millions affected by it. While I do not shop at Target often of course I bought one thing from the store during the time of the breach. I was a nervous wreck, my wife was even worse. Luckily the only thing affected was our nerves and not our personal identities. Since then, it seems like data breaches happen every day. It is sad that I do not even remember the Anthem breach. It just blends in with all the others.
Between November 27th and December 15th of 2013 Target experienced one of the largest cyber hacks in United States history (Clark, 2014). Over 40 million customers were affected. According to Target’s website, hackers stole customer’s personal information including their “names, mailing addresses, email addresses and or phone numbers” (Target Brands Inc., 2016). Target discovered the breech on December 15, 2013, and did not inform the public for almost a week later on December 19, 2013. Over the next month, they tried to keep customers informed on the progress and tried to bringing them back to their stores, by offering discounts, free credit monitoring and other incentives (Clark, 2014). However, this did not work, the company’s sales dropped and in January 2014 they had to lay off almost 500 employees at Target headquarters and 700 worldwide (Clark, 2014). By May, Target had invested millions of dollars to update their security system, was still trying to boost company moral, and CEO Gregg Steinafel resigned. Things did not get easier for the company. In March of 2015 the company offered a $10 million settlement for the data breech class action lawsuit (Bukary, 2015). The company also laid off more than 3,000 companywide. Today, it seems Target is finally back getting the company back on its feet. According to their recent press releases their third quarter earnings were high and they had a record sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. On January 29, 2015 Anthem Inc. was made aware their system had been hacked (Anthem Inc, 2016). The attack started over a month ago, in December of 2015. Unlike Target, it took them months to even discover their data was being compromised. They informed the public on February 13, 2015, almost two weeks after they discovered the hack. Unlike Target, Anthem had not yet solved the problem. They were still investigating with the FBI and other cybersecurity firms (Anthem Inc., 2016). Anthem’s hackers stole more personal information than Target’s hackers. They stole customer’s names, date of birth, social security numbers, healthcare ID numbers, home address, email address and income (Anthem Inc.,2016). The only thing they don’t believe was stolen was credit card numbers,
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While some might think this is ridiculous, I do not. Informing customers that their personal information was compromised it a serious problem. For many, including myself, this was the first big data breech they were effected by. Before the company created a P.R. nightmare, they needed to get all their facts straight and fix the problem. In those seven days before they informed the public, they met with the U.S. Justice Department, hired third-party forensic teams and installed malware to all their registers in the United States to protect their customers from future hackers (Clark, 2013). I believe this was the best move for the company. They could not inform the public before they fixed the problem. Target also released multiple press releases following the incident to keep customers informed on the hack. I believe Target informed the customer’s in a timely manner, but could have done it in a better way. They emailed the customers in regards to the data breech, but so were spammers and other hackers. Customers did not know who to believe. Which email was from Target? Could they click on a link for more information? Not only were customers in danger of one data breech but they had to deal with the potential for another one on top of that. Target should have sent the customers a letter instead of an email. This would have been safer for their customers and helped ease their

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