Fergie's Tech Blog

Customer Data Breach Began in 2005, TJX Says

Ellen Nakashima writes in The Washington Post:

Retail giant TJX, whose stores include discount clothing chains T.J. Maxx and Marshalls, said yesterday that a computer-security breach stretched back 10 months earlier than the company originally thought, compromising credit and debit card data, drivers' license numbers, and names and addresses.

The announcement underscores a trend of security breaches involving sensitive credit card data and reflects failures to properly secure computer systems, to notify customers when breaches occur and to update laws for the cyber-crime age, lawmakers and analysts said.

TJX said that while it first thought the intrusion took place from May 2006 to January 2007, it now thinks its computer system was also hacked in July 2005 and on "various subsequent dates" that year. The company, which reported the intrusion in January -- a month after it said it discovered the breach -- has not said how many customers may have been affected or how many customers it has notified.

posted by Fergie @ 2/23/2007 09:07:00 AM