At last TJX, who own TK Maxx shops in Ireland and the UK, have finally released the number of credit card numbers exposed. It is the biggest credit card exposure in history with over 45 million credit card numbers exposed going back to 2002. Now some of those cards may be expired but it still leaves a lot of customers who now face risk of having their credit cards abused by criminals.
For TJX this is a significant problem, already they have posted a $5m or a $0.01 a share loss in their accounts against the cost of the hack. That is not to mention whatever fines may be imposed on them by the PCI Standards and the US Government and any subsequent legal cases taken against them.
While ultimately the criminals who attacked TJX are to blame we must remember that TJX were storing this data contrary to industry best practice and the PCI Standard. The fallout from this incident is not over yet and will have impacts on us all. Perhaps this is the digital Enron that will bring about a corporate sea change in attitude to information security?
