NEW YORK — Fallout from Target’s pre-Christmas security breach is likely to affect the company’s sales and profits well into the new year.
NEW YORK — Fallout from Target’s pre-Christmas security breach is likely to affect the company’s sales and profits well into the new year.
The company disclosed Friday the massive data theft was significantly more extensive and affected millions more shoppers than the company reported in December. As a result of the breach, millions of Target customers have become vulnerable to identity theft, experts said.
The nation’s second largest discounter said hackers stole personal information — including names, phone numbers as well as email and mailing addresses — from as many as 70 million customers as part of a data breach it discovered last month.
Target announced Dec. 19 that some 40 million credit and debit card accounts were affected by a data breach that happened between Nov. 27-Dec. 15 — just as the holiday shopping season was getting into gear. As part of that announcement, the company said customers’ names, credit and debit card numbers, card expiration dates, debit card PINs and the embedded code on the magnetic strip on the back of cards were stolen.
According to new information gleaned from its investigation with the Secret Service and the Department of Justice, Target said Friday criminals also took non-credit card related data for some 70 million shoppers who could have made purchases at Target stores outside the late November to mid-December period.
Some overlap exists between the two data sets, the company said. That means more than 70 million people might have had their data stolen.
The latest developments come as Target said just this week it was starting to see sales recover from the crisis. The company, however, cut its earnings outlook for the quarter that covers the crucial holiday season and warned sales would be down for the period.
But with the latest news, some analysts think the breach could be a financial drag for several more quarters.
“This is going to linger like a black cloud over the company’s financials for the first half of the year,” said Brian S. Sozzi, CEO & chief equities strategist at Belus Capital Advisors.