In an October 10th statement Kmart admitted to be working with a security firm to assess a recent breach that happened in early September. Kmart responds with free credit monitoring for effected customers.
“Although it does not surprise me these days that another credit breach is in the news”, says ESET’s security specialist Mark James, “it’s good to see a relatively quick approach to notify their customers.”
The silver lining to this, the latest in a long line of corporate data security breaches, including Home Depot and JP Morgan, is that they are setting a brilliant example to companies that WILL be breached in the future.
Credit Monitoring
Kmart “have offered a credit monitoring service to everyone who used a credit or debit card at Kmart stores in September through to October 9th.
“If that’s you… make a note when it was used and monitor your statements very closely”, Mark advises.
“Often credit card fraud is first seen as small “under the radar” amounts designed to test if the credit card works, then we could see lots of small amounts or a few bigger ones.”
Yes they were breached and that is becoming far to commonplace with large trusted companies nowadays. But perhaps their reaction to it can serve as an example to other companies and overall make the impact of this kind of breach much less critical.