Data Management

Minneapolis – Target reportedly said a data breach at an unidentified vendor led to hackers obtaining phony credentials that allowed them to gain access to Target’s systems and steal the information for 40 million credit and debit cards, as well as the personal data of about 70 million consumers. According to the Associated Press, Target did not offer any specific details on who the vendor was or how hackers obtained the credentials.

New York -- Testifying Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder confirmed that the Justice Department is investigating the consumer data breach at Target Corp.

"While we generally do not discuss specific matters under investigation, I can confirm the Department is investigating the breach involving the U.S. retailer, Target," Holder said in his statement to senators,.”

Albertson, N.Y. - Facilities service management company ServiceChannel is partnering with cloud-based business intelligence platform GoodData. Through this partnership, ServiceChannel customers will now be able to have access to more than a dozen years of independent GoodView cost and performance data through its ProView intuitive reporting and visualization platform.

One year after Amazon Web Services launched its Redshift brand data warehousing solution, the company has upgraded the service to offer users faster data crunching capabilities at lower cost.

Colorado Springs, Colo. – Secure data vault provider CertainStore is rolling out of a cybersecurity solution utilizing its proprietary micro-encryption/micro-tokenization technology to prevent the re-occurrence of recent malicious attacks on customer data.

Irving, Texas – Michaels Stores has learned of possible fraudulent activity on some U.S. payment cards that had been used at Michaels, suggesting that the company may have experienced a data security attack.

In a statement posted to its website on Jan. 25, Michaels said it is working closely with federal law enforcement and is conducting an investigation with the help of third-party data security experts to establish the facts.

Michaels may have been the victim of an attack on its data, but it wasn’t going to wait to find out the way Target and Neiman Marcus did before warning customers.

In a statement laced with the word, “may,” Michaels said it recently learned of possible fraudulent activity on some U.S. payment cards that had been used at its stores, which it said suggested the company may have experienced a data security attack.

Washington, D.C. – The FBI has reportedly issued a confidential report to U.S. retailers warning that more cyber attacks like the ones recently suffered by Target and Neiman Marcus will occur. According to Reuters, the three-page report was distributed Jan. 17 and informs retailers that the FBI has discovered in the past year there have been at least 20 attacks using the same type of malware used against Target.

Lawrenceville, N.J. -- A new online tool from supply chain information standards organization GS1 US, called the GS1 US Data Hub, will make it possible for retailers, e-tailers, data pools, solution providers and a variety of application developers to access the detailed information associated with GS1 company prefixes, the specific combination of numbers embedded in GS1 identifiers and barcodes to identify a company.

St. Louis -- Brown Shoe Company has selected Agilence Retail 20/20 as its exception reporting solution. The next-generation exception reporting solution will provide Brown Shoe Company with a platform for reporting on point-of-sale transactions, e-commerce, inventory adjustments, financials, and customer loyalty.