Target cyber breach hits 40 million payment cards at holiday peak

Reuters) - Target Corp said hackers have stolen data from up to 40 million credit and debit cards of shoppers who visited its stores during the first three weeks of the holiday season in the second-largest such breach reported by a U.S. retailer.
The hackers worked at unprecedented speed, carrying out their operation from the day before Thanksgiving to this past Sunday, 19 days that are the heart of the crucial Christmas holiday sales season.
Target, the third-largest U.S. retailer, said on Thursday that it was working with federal law enforcement and outside experts to prevent similar attacks in the future. It did not disclose how its systems were compromised.

 

 

Target did not detect the attack on its own, according to a person familiar with the investigation.
The retailer was alerted its systems might have been compromised by credit card processors who had noticed a surge in fraudulent transactions involving credit cards that had been used at Target, according to the source, who was not authorized to discuss the matter.
The timing of the breach could not have been worse for Target, coming just before three of the four busiest days of what has been a bruising holiday season for retailers, with the highest level of discounting in years. Target itself last month lowered its profit forecast for the year after disappointing sales in the third quarter.
Complaints from customers began to surface on social media as they learned of it early Thursday morning.
"Most of these attacks are just a cost of doing business," said Mark Rasch, a former U.S. prosecutor of cyber crimes.
"But an attack that's targeted against a major retailer during the peak of the Christmas season is much more than that because it undermines confidence."
Investigators are still trying to understand how the attack was carried out, including whether hackers found a weakness at Target's own computer network or through credit card services vendors. It was not immediately clear what percent of the transactions at its brick and mortar stores had been compromised but the company said its online business had not been affected.
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, who headed a multi-state probe into a 2007 data breach at TJX Cos, said in a statement that her office was talking to Target about the breach and how the company is addressing it, and plans to work with other Attorneys General to determine whether the company had proper safeguards in place.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a public statement that he had asked Target for more information as well. Lawyers said that there will almost definitely be class action suits against Target.
The affected payment cards include Target's REDcard private label debit and credit cards as well as other bank cards, Target spokeswoman Molly Snyder told Reuters on Thursday. She declined to say if the incident was affecting store traffic.
The largest breach against a U.S. retailer, uncovered in 2007 at TJX Cos Inc, led to the theft of data from more than 90 million credit cards over about 18 months.
Since then, companies have gotten far more adept at identifying intruders. But criminals have responded by developing more-powerful attack strategies, spending months on reconnaissance to launch highly sophisticated schemes with the goal of extracting as much data as they can in the shortest period of time.
Representatives for J.C. Penney Co Inc, Wal-Mart Stores Inc, Best Buy Co Inc and Home Depot Inc told Reuters they believed their systems had not been compromised in similar attacks.
Target will provide more details on costs related to the issue at a later date, Snyder said. She declined comment when asked if Target expected potential fines from MasterCard, Visa and American Express or saw a possible increase in merchant fees.
"It's so early in this investigation," Snyder said.
Avivah Litan, a Gartner analyst who specializes in cyber-security and fraud detection, saw costs for Target. "They are going to pay for any fraud on the card," she said. "They will get fined (by card issuers) for non-compliance with payment card security standards. Their merchant fee will probably go up a few basis points."
Target's shares closed down 2.2 percent at $62.15 on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday afternoon, while the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index fell 0.06 percent.
ANGRY CUSTOMERS
Target warned customers in an alert on its website that the criminals had stolen names, payment card numbers, expiration dates and security codes.
The company had identified the breach on Sunday and had begun responding to it the same day, Snyder said. She declined to explain why the retailer waited until Thursday to alert customers about the breach.
Krebs on Security, a closely watched security industry blog that broke the news on Wednesday, said the breach involved nearly all of Target's 1,797 stores in the United States.
The U.S. Secret Service is working on the investigation, according to an agency spokeswoman. A Federal Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman declined to comment.
Unhappy customers began to weigh in early on Thursday, posting complaints on Target's Facebook page.
"Thank you Target for nearly costing me and my wife our identities, we will never shop or purchase anything in your store again," said one posting.
"Shop at Target, become a target," remarked another. "Gee, thanks."
Target's Snyder said it has been getting an "extremely high" volume of calls from customers and is adding employees to its call centers to answer questions on security breach.
Krista Brewer, 27, a student at Bridgewater State University at Braintree, Massachusetts, sent Target an email and canceled her credit card on Thursday because she had used it multiple times in recent weeks at the store.
"If they don't do anything for the customers who had their cards put at risk, such as coupons or a special deal, I think I will avoid shopping there in the future," she said. "I'm very security conscious, and they aren't saying exactly how the breech happened."
JPMorgan Chase & Co, one of the biggest U.S. credit card issuers, said it was monitoring the accounts involved for suspicious activity and urged customers to contact the bank if they noticed any.
An American Express spokeswoman said the company was aware of the incident and was putting fraud controls in place.
Major card brands typically offer their cardholders zero liability and cardholders should contact their issuer if they spot suspicious transactions, a Visa spokesman said, adding that a breached account does not necessarily result in a fraudulent purchase.
"This could hurt the end of the holiday season if for no other reason than many of their customers have to cancel cards ahead of holidays," said Janney Capital Markets analyst David Strasser.
The breach also comes at a time Target is trying to build its online business, which by some estimates is only 2 percent of sales.
"All consumers will hear is that Target is not a safe place to use your credit card. That impacts trust, which in turn can impact retail's fastest-growing and most trust-sensitive touch points: online and mobile," said Carol Spieckerman, president of retail strategy firm newmarketbuilders.
Still, consumers tend to have short memories with these things, so even if it is bad now, it will likely be less of an issue next quarter, said Gartner analyst Litan.
"(Consumers) care more about discounts than security," she said.
source;http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/19/us-target-breach-idUSBRE9BH1GX20131219

Mega Millions Jackpot Climbs to $586 Million

The Mega Millions jackpot inched toward a U.S. lottery record Monday as it soared to $586 million amid a frenzy of ticket purchases, raising the possibility that the prize could pass the once-unthinkable $1 billion mark by Christmas Eve should nobody win before then.

Paula Otto, executive director of the Virginia Lottery and lead director for Mega Millions, said ticket sales are ahead of projections for Tuesday's drawing, increasing the likelihood it could shatter the current record of $656 million, set in a March 2012 Mega Millions drawing.

That was enough for Drew Gentsch to buy one ticket Monday morning. The attorney from Des Moines never plays, but the ballooning jackpot was too good to pass up.

"I think it's ridiculous but you have to dream big," he said. "The odds of winning are so low, there's no real reason to play. But it's fun to do so once in a while."

The large Mega Millions prize is the product of a major game revamp in October that dramatically lowered the odds of winning the jackpot. If a winner isn't selected Tuesday night and it rolls over past the next drawing scheduled Friday night, Otto predicts the jackpot will reach $1 billion — an unheard of amount for Mega Millions or Powerball, the nation's two main lottery games.

"We had predicted last week that if we are still on the same roll on Christmas Eve, we'll definitely be over a billion," she said.

Scott Norris, a mathematician from Southern Methodist University, said he estimates around 700 million more tickets must be sold without producing a winner for the jackpot to reach $1 billion on this run. He puts the odds of that around 6 percent.

Norris emphasized his calculation does not take into account the extra $1 that players can throw in for the Megaplier option, which allows them to increase their non-jackpot prize by up to five times.

John Hagerty, a spokesman for the Virginia Lottery, said officials can't confirm Norris' calculation. He said there's no clear number for sales if the jackpot rolls past Tuesday, so they can't accurately calculate what percentage of the possible combinations will be covered.

The current jackpot, which is the fourth largest in U.S. history and closely trails the $587.5 million and $590.5 million set by Powerball, has had heavy sales over the last several days. Otto noted that the higher the jackpot, the higher the sales. For example, when the jackpot was $99 million on Nov. 5, lottery officials sold just over $20 million worth of tickets. For Friday's then-$425 million jackpot, $168 million worth of tickets were sold.

Otto said it's likely the jackpot will be increased again after lottery officials meet Tuesday morning to discuss sales. Between 65 and 70 percent of the roughly 259 million possible number combinations will be in play when the numbers are drawn, Otto estimated.

"Lotto players are procrastinators. They tend to buy on the day of the draw," she said.

Some players were taken aback by the growing jackpot and the possibility that it could keep getting bigger if it rolls for a 22nd consecutive time.

Natali Justiniano Pahl, 47, bought five tickets Monday morning from a convenience store in downtown. She said the growing jackpot made her excited, albeit somewhat weary.

"It gets the excitement up, but there's a point when it's too much," said Justiniano Pahl, who works in human resources. "$5 million would be good; $550 million would be good. Either one would change your life."

Otto said officials have never had such a huge jackpot around this time of year, and it's unclear how holiday shoppers are driving sales.

"To have that kind of money on the line the week before Christmas, we've never had that happen before," she said, "What fun."

source:http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/mega-millions-jackpot-climbs-record-21229431

Who is Mary Barra, the next CEO of GM?

For years, Mary Barra has been a growing force within General Motors. While she wasn't a sure bet to be named to be first woman CEO of a major automaker, she certainly was well-positioned to make a run for it.
As senior vice president for global product development for the past two years, Barra, 51, has had her fingers on the pulse of the giant automaker's entire car and truck portfolio worldwide. The position brought her into direct contact with the cutting edge of the company — which vehicles are needed around the globe, and how different markets can share them.
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As if the job weren't big enough, last August she was given the added responsibility of GM's entire purchasing and supply chain worldwide and became executive vice president. That put her in direct control of overseeing the thousands of suppliers and parts subsidiaries that account for everything that's needed to create a modern vehicle. It's an area where automakers are constantly tweaking in search of greater efficiencies and savings. It also can be a major headache, since mistakes made at the supplier level reflect on the automaker, not just the supplier.
FROM SEPTEMBER: GM's Akerson: Female CEO inevitable
OUTGOING CEO: Akerson brought big improvements
Meanwhile, she also sits on the supervisory board trying to turn around GM's longtime money-losing Opel unit in Europe, which faces added challenges due to the recession there.
Yet, through it all, she has stayed true to her blue-collar Michigan roots as the daughter of a GM tool-and-die maker. "She's the real deal, very down to earth," says Dave Cole, chairman of Auto Harvest, a non-profit devoted to innovation. "She was not raised in an aristocracy."
Barra's career at GM started in 1980, when she went to the Pontiac division as a "co-op student" through General Motors Institute, now Kettering University. She earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and in 1990, earned her MBA from Stanford.
"She was identified fairly early as someone who had a lot of potential," Cole says.
Her humble background came into play when she was vice president for global human resources, where she was charged with overseeing the culture change to a new GM after the bankruptcy restructuring, and made the company a less buttoned-down place to work — literally. She booted some of the company's more onerous dress codes, and has been seen wearing dark nail polish, according to The Detroit News.
She earlier distinguished herself in a line of positions. She was vice president for global manufacturing engineering. She ran GM's sprawling Detroit Hamtramck Assembly plant. Barra was also executive director of competitive operations engineering and held other posts.

source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2013/12/10/mary-barra-bio-gm/3951015/

$400 million! Friday's Mega Millions jackpot will be 2nd biggest in lottery's history

By Elizabeth Dilts and Eric M. Johnson, Reuters

The Mega Millions jackpot grew to an estimated $400 million after no one won the top prize of $344 million on Tuesday.
The next draw is slated for Friday, December 13 - considered an unlucky date by some - at 11 p.m. ET.
If the winner chose to take a cash prize instead of an annuity, it would amount to $216 million, according to its website.
The winning numbers from that drawing were: 5, 12, 22, 41, 65 and 13, Mega Millions said.
No one has won the jackpot in more than two months, pushing the purse steadily higher, although it remains well below the record-setting $656 million won on March 30, 2012.
The next largest prizes in the 17-year history of Mega Millions were worth $390 million and $380 million.

the source:http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/11/21858843-400-million-fridays-mega-millions-jackpot-will-be-2nd-biggest-in-lotterys-history?lite

Making A Little Extra Income

The very best way to invest 1000 is unquestionably up for debate these days. Many people are interested in investing their excess cash to make some additional income. In case you have some capital you need to multiply, listed below are 2 choices you might like to take into account:

Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is amongst the most affordable and best means of generating income online. This is when you direct traffic to another person's website in your affiliate link. The affiliate tracking software can tell that you were the the one that sent the traffic, and therefore you get credit for the sale. You then get a cut of the sale price.

In some cases you can get 50-75% of the money, as in the case of an information product. Along with a physical product, it's usually closer to 3-6%. Because of the higher dollar amount, the information products may seem such as the apparent choice to promote. However, they are usually much more competitive at the same time. Thus, there is often much more opportunity in advertising physical products.

How to go with regards to affiliate marketing the right way

One of the best methods is to start a blog about a topic you know about, and write naturally posts with that subject. That way, folks may come to view you as an expert, and they will respect your opinion. Once you have built yourself up a great readership, after that you can start recommending products for folks to buy.

Caution: you don't want every single post to be about a item to obtain. Having said that, every once and awhile writing an item review about a popular item on the market that you are promoting can be a great way to monetize your website.

EBay selling

Selling on eBay is yet another excellent method for using your additional $1000. Nevertheless, not only anybody can make money on eBay. You will need a good work ethic, and also you have to be prepared.

Many people think they could just begin selling anything as well as making a lot of cash. That is not the case. You need to do your research, and make sure there is a market for the item. Lack of preparation is one of the major causes that eBay sellers fail.

First, you want to make sure you can actually sell the product. Consequently, you would like to get a list of catalogs from feasible wholesalers, and see precisely what products they have intended for you to sell. There isn't any sense in investing considerable time researching a product, simply to learn you cannot truly get your hands on it to sell from the start.

As soon as you have a list of items using this method, look it up on eBay and find out how the product is selling. One good way to achieve this is to go to the advanced tab on the eBay homepage. This permits you to do a more thorough search on the product.

For instance, if you are interested in selling Burton snowboards, you'd type that into the keyword tab on top of the screen. Then you definitely would scroll down and check the completed listings tab to be sure it just shows auctions which have ended.

3 BrilliantBenefits Obtained From Affiliate Marketing

When youdesire to start a online company, you have todetermine what type of company is most suitable to your preferences. The way a lot of people start out, nevertheless, is with internet affiliate marketing due to the several advantages. Even if it is a straightforward matter to begin marketing affiliate products,though, you nevertheless have to know what you are doing ifyou need your endeavor to be lucrative. Successful marketing on the net involves many variables including the amountof knowledge and information you've. There is plenty of advice about internet affiliate marketing around the web, and you should bear as much with this as youmay. To allow you to beginyour journey, we'll be talking about some of the essentialcharacteristics of affiliate marketing in this article.

The internet is definitely a different sort ofplace to promote, advertise and normally conduct business. What is also interesting andinterested is the fact this 1 change with a largebusiness may set off a cascading effect with other relatedorganizations. Do never thinksomething about the web is guaranteed for a lifetime because events show otherwise. Hopefully you will find ourdialogue around the merits of home business ideas as something that could be easily incorporated along with your current systems. However,you really should look at all things when it comes to what youcan do together in the future, or ifthere could actually be something that could possiblybe a poor.

However, there will be occasions when you just have to be fearless, and also understand that just about everything in business has some risk with it. Ifyou read their sales page and see which they do not really mention e-mail promotion andpromotion that much you may need to take an email to the creator of the system and ask them about this component.

Whether or not you will beadvertisements affiliate links or your own web site is something else you may possibly want to find out about before youpurchase the application so you understand what you are available for. While there's nothing wrong with just one of these techniques you're likely to discover that having your own personalwebsite is usually better when it comes toNet Promotion and promotion. Affiliate advertising programs may usuallyshut down with no notice whatsoever, this means all of the work you have completed to have the ability to market this has been wasted. Nevertheless for these who have your own web site where you send men and women, all you might need to do isreplace the present affiliate system with analternative 1 and continue to make cash.

One final factor you desire to ensure that the program has is some form of money back assure just in case this application isn't lucrative for you. If you follow the ideas you may really well be able to find a lucrative, automated online business program.

A product inventor does one important point: makeitems. But the internet marketer can spot some new trend or trend in an industry, or market, and then take action that evening. This ensures that you've speed of performance in your pocket. It is simple to locateproducts and services that complement whatever style or novelty is just starting to show itself. Often,some of these items willpreviously be for sale in the marketplace. This is really asignificant benefit for an affiliate marketers rather than for those that promote outside of affiliate advertising. Affiliate entrepreneurs should always be on the alert for fresh trends and trends.

One important advantage of affiliate marketing online is that you do not have toput the maximum amount of effort and time into it. The primary reason behind this is because of theconstruction of affiliate products. The services and products are not your own so you do not have tostress as much about them. Plenty of individuals have madeproducts that failed to end up functioning. I understand people that has happened to and it has happened to me, also. Productdevelopment is a thing that is going toprice both money and time. If it does not triumph, you and the affiliates are going to beoutside time and cash.

Of course it's desirable to just need to be concerned with marketing and promotion. Affiliate entrepreneurs have a huge load taken off their shoulders if they utilize this model. There is still a lot of work to complete and there will never be any guarantees of success. But you have to acknowledge that there's a short ton of perform you usually do not have to complete when you arepromoting affiliate items. This is one of those benefits that's worth givingsome thought to. We are pushed for time andindividuals who attempt to put up down complete time jobs whilenonetheless doing Web Advertising have a lot morewant to limit their duties.

Many advantages exist for internet marketers, these three are just the beginning. But usually do not leave believing there are not any more to beloved. You can'teven begin to count the number of benefits that exist forinternet marketers. The more you understand, the more you can do because advice is what championsinventiveness.

Amazing Ideas On Helping You Succeed At Email Promotion

Email marketing and the internet were almost born together. Though some spam filters have been able to make it impossible for unwanted emails to get into a given inbox, email marketing can be a good thing for the sender and the recipient alike. There are email marketing strategies that can bring you handsome profits if done the right way.

The first thing to do is to avoid overwhelming your recipients with to much information. Stick to one topic at a time. Customers will appreciate it when they are not bombarded with a whole range of topics which they have to decipher and analyse. They want something straight to the point, concise and simple. So keep your email messages short and simple.

Try to keep the emails you send similar by way of fonts, format and company or business logo. Once your customers become familiar with your easy and attractive style, they will look out for it. So make it easy for them to identify your mesaages.

When researching marketing with email, use a variety of resources as much as you can. Articles and ebooks on the internet are of immense help. You can even watch some webinars to give you more insight on how to use email marketing.

Marketing via email remains a very common practice. It is a great technique that can be used to advertise to customers using email. Once you become familiar with it, email promoting is an excellent tool for generating business and you should be able to find success with this method through the use of the advice in this article. What makes email marketing so effective, it is because it is personal in that you can address your recipients by name. People feel good when their names are remembered by those they do business with,especially strangers. They feel they are not being taken for a ride.

Remember to be consistent with your email layouts. This aspect cannot be stressed enough. Always use the same company logo and colors in your email. The font you select should be easy to read. Once they have received a couple of messages, your customers will recognize your emails, and be happy to open them. In email marketing, familiarity is a key aspect. To avoid monotony, you could have a set of say, three email formats which are unique. Keeping them unique all the time, soon your customers will easily recognise them and they will always be on the look out for them. Consistency is the key.