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With 56 Million Cards Compromised, Home Depot's Breach Is Bigger Than Target's

This article is more than 9 years old.

Home Depot  announced that 56 million credit cards were compromised in a breach that lasted from April to September 2014—making this latest retail breach larger than Target’s 40-million card breach.

Home Depot began its investigation on September 2, the same day Brian Krebs broke the news of a potential breach at the retailer. On September 8, Home Depot confirmed that a breach had occurred. Now, just more than two weeks after the investigation began, Home Depot says that all malware is gone from the company’s system.

Home Depot says the malware used in the attack has not been seen in previous attacks, describing the malware as “unique” and “custom-built.”  This differs from reports during the investigation that experts believed the breach involved the same malware as the Target breach.

“We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience and anxiety this has caused, and want to reassure them that they will not be liable for fraudulent charges,” said Frank Blake, Home Depot’s chairman and CEO Frank Blake.

Home Depot estimates that the breach has cost approximately $62 million, with more costs likely to come. The company believes it will be reimbursed $27 million thanks to its insurance coverage. Last month, Target announced that its breach cost the company $148 million, more than twice the amount Home Depot is estimating.

According to its statement, Home Depot believes it will have a 4.8 percent growth in sales this year, as previously predicted. When Home Depot first began investigating a potential breach, Forbes reporter Samantha Sharf noted that Home Deport could suffer high financial losses from the breach, with one analyst predicting a loss of 7 cents per share from Home Depot’s 2014 earnings.

Home Depot also announced that it has now “rolled out enhanced encryption of payment data” to all its stores in the United States, completing a project that was started at the beginning of this year. Additionally, Home Depot says it plans to have EMV “Chip and PIN” technology in all stores in the United States by the end of the year, ahead of the retail industry’s 2015 deadline.

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