Target's data breach

The Target's data breach which hit the market in the holiday season in the end of 2013 has yet to be resolved. Even more shocking is the fact the situation is getting even worse. Target was not the only one hit by this cyber-attack, as various news agencies reported, Neiman Marcus (the high-end department stores) were also damaged by cyber criminals. What is more disturbing, reports have been showing up that another big company, InterCrawler, has been suffering from the same type of malicious software attacks in at least six instances. The reports suggest that the retail stores are in New York and California.

Target, which averages 30 million customers a week, said that an ongoing investigation found that "the stolen information includes names, mailing addresses, phone numbers or e-mail addresses for up to 70 million individuals." There may be overlap in customers who had both personal identification information stolen as well as credit and debit card data, but Target doesn't know to what extent, says spokeswoman Molly Snyder. It remains unclear just how many individuals are affected and how.

InterCrawler was quick to release a statement suggesting some evidence on the criminal that managed to create BlackPOS malware which lifted over 70 million credit card user's information in the period between Thanks giving and Christmas. InterCrawler's statement suggest that the malware was tested out and infected Australian, Canadian and United States markets. Here is the following statement:

The same dates the detailed information and reverse-engineering report were shared with Visa and several major US banks, after which US LEA released internal notification for financial industry about that. The bad actor was pretty opened for trading this malware for 2,000 USD or by receiving 50% from selling of all intercepted credit cards by his customer through Liberty Reserve.

The full story on this world-wide hacking scandal can be found on InterCrawler's website with more statements suggesting that the person responsible may be only 17 years old. If this is true, the world is definately witnessing a great mastermind in the process. Although the damage is substantial and the teenager should be responsible for his actions, one can not admire enough the genius work of this kid, highlighting the fact he outthinked the great mind's that are working in the security sector.