STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Friday, 17 January 2014

[DemReadingDU]

29. WSJ: Multiple retailers had security breaches

1/16/14 Target Hackers Wrote Partly in Russian, Displayed High Skill, Report Finds
Hacking Campaign Appears Broad, Sophisticated and Against Many Retailers

The holiday data breach at Target Corp. TGT -1.22% appeared to be part of a broad and highly sophisticated international hacking campaign against multiple retailers, according to a report prepared by federal and private investigators that was sent to financial-services companies and retailers.

The report offers some of the first details to emerge about the source of the attack that compromised 40 million credit- and debit-card accounts and personal data for 70 million people. It also provided further evidence the attack on Target during peak holiday shopping was part of a concerted effort by skilled hackers.

Parts of the malicious computer code used against Target's credit-card readers had been on the Internet's black market since last spring and were partly written in Russian, people familiar with the report said. Both details suggest the attack may have ties to organized crime in the former Soviet Union, former U.S. officials said.

Investigators wouldn't say how Target's network was breached, but the software virus injected into its payment-card devices couldn't be detected by any known antivirus software, according to the report. The virus's authors included additional features to hide that they were collecting copies of data from the magnetic stripes on Target customers' payment cards and concealing it within Target's systems.

Working with Dallas cybersecurity company iSight Partners Inc., the U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently sent these findings to financial-services and retail companies in a secret memo on the attackers. On Thursday, iSight released its own version of the report that included some of the same data. "What's really unique about this one is it's the first time we've seen the attack method at this scale," said Tiffany Jones, a senior vice president at iSight. "It conceals all the data transfers. It makes it really hard to detect in the first place."

Ms. Jones declined to elaborate on the specific attack method these hackers used, citing a continuing government investigation.

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http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304419104579324902602426862?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304419104579324902602426862.html