Created: 04/15/2014 By: RCcola1987
Have you checked your bank statement lately? We sure have! Target and a few other large retail outlets had there credit card databases stolen in one of the largest leeks of all time. Everyone should be watching very closely for any unknown charges on there credit cards and debit cards. The breach seems to have started sometime in early November of 2013 with a group probing the Target network. This went on for almost 3 months before the FBI informed Target that it had been breached.
During the attack most if not all credit card and debit card data, including pin numbers, was syphoned off. But why didn't Target know about the attack? From all reports it seems that Target was simply negligent in responding to internal monitors that were telling them of suspicious activity on their network. But two other big blunders should not be over looked. First they had there POS system accessible form the Internet and not properly segregated off from the rest of the internal network. Second they were using Windows XP Embedded which is not and never has been a good choice for these kinds of computers. Simply put if you application is Java based there is no reason to be running on Windows. Its just a good way to open yourself up for attacks.
For those interested in learning more here are some great resources below:
