Home Depot Credit Card Records May have Been Hacked

First it was Target, then an attempt to hack Albertsons,  now Home Depot.

Internet security experts say a huge batch of credit and debit card information that went "onsale" on an underground website may have come from Home Depot, and could potentially dwarf the Target breach.

Internet security guru Brian Krebs reported Tuesday:

"The breach could have begun in late April or early May of this year, Krebs reported.

If that is true, this incident could dwarf the Target breach, in which 40 million credit and debit accounts were compromised over a three-week period."

According to Northwest Cable News:

"This latest batch of cards is for sale from the same underground store that sold cards from P.F. Chang's and Target," said Trey Ford, a security strategist at Rapid7, a Boston-based computer security company.

Home Depot spokeswoman Paula Drake said she could only "confirm that we're looking into some unusual activity, and we are working with our banking partners and law enforcement to investigate."

The data put up for sale were labeled "American Sanctions."

Krebs interpreted the name "as intended retribution for U.S. and European sanctions against Russia for its aggressive actions in Ukraine."

Officials say the data for sale included information that would have come from the black magnetic strip found on the back of credit and debit cards.   Experts say based upon that, there's probably the presence of what they call "malicious software" on the sale registers in the stores...that's rather scary!

Home Depot officials continue to investigate.