PSA: Shop at Home Depot ? Time to replace your credit cards !

[cbelt3]

http://money.cnn.com/2014/09/02/technolo...?hpt=hp_t4

"Independent cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs was the first to report this, saying "a massive new batch of stolen credit and debit cards" went for sale Tuesday in the black market online.

Krebs said hackers were possibly in Home Depot's computer systems from May until now. If that's true, this might be even larger than the three-week long Target breach that affected 40 million debit and credit cards late last year, he noted."


Aaarrggghhhh.

[GuyGene]

Si.

[freeradical]

I'm curious. Why should I care about this? As long as I watch my accounts and report anything unusual, I'm not going to lose any money. I've had a couple of incidents in the past where there was unauthorized use of my credit cards, and I've never lost a cent. It seems like this is really just a problem for the banks and merchants. I figure that they've simply made the collective decision that dealing with these incidents is cheaper than upgrading their security.

[testcase]

"It seems like this is really just a problem for the banks and merchants."


Except the "banks and merchants" pass along their costs (ie: losses) to all consumers in the form of higher prices. Even if you always pay with cash, you (and everyone else) end up paying more because of losses like this.

[raz]

freeradical wrote:
I'm curious. Why should I care about this? As long as I watch my accounts and report anything unusual, I'm not going to lose any money. I've had a couple of incidents in the past where there was unauthorized use of my credit cards, and I've never lost a cent. It seems like this is really just a problem for the banks and merchants. I figure that they've simply made the collective decision that dealing with these incidents is cheaper than upgrading their security.

This.

If I swapped credit cards after every security breach (Target, Home Depot, ...) I'd be at it constantly.

[cbelt3]

I've had to swap credit cards three times now (T.J. Max, Harbor Freight, Target), It's freaking annoying. WHEN will these retailers understand that POS does NOT stand for Piece of ... well, you know. Farging pieces of junk from the 1990's....

[deckeda]

Cards and some higher costs associated with them aren't going away. Banks and merchants do indeed have to sort this out! It'll be interesting to see what happens in a years' time with the chips ...

I like how the hackers gave the card numbers a download filename meant to show political punishment. Thieves are just so principled today! Hey, it's not about the money, honest!

U.S. Gov't: "OK! We'll completely reverse our attitudes regarding Russian and the Ukraine! Just leave our garden hose and paint can shopping alone please!"

Um, no.

[OWC Jamie]

Nice.
So if I were going to Europe, say, tomorrow and I planned on taking only the one card and it just happens to be the card I use at Home Depot always, it might be prudent to consider a back up card ( as many will recommend ) and not be surprised if I gat a call from that card issuer stating my account has been compromised and they are sending me a new card for a new account - to my home address.
Edit: Sigh, maybe I should just stay home. :-)


I don't think it matters how good an issuer might be at identifying fraudulent use of your card/ account, I'd still be looking at statements a little more carefully for a while.

[Michael]

I just went ahead and got a new Fidelity Amex since I had used mine at HD a bunch of times this spring and summer. It's easier to not have to worry about it.

[cbelt3]

Shopped there last night (Paid cash) and they had a notice up on each cash register that there were 'problems' and they are researching it. And offered the usual ' one year credit monitoring', which is a bandaid. I had a nice conversation with the cashier, and explained how POS malware works.