Sally Beauty follows Target’s lead

It looks like one year of free credit monitoring has become the new industry standard for retailers looking to placate customers potentially affected by a data breach.



Sally Beauty is the latest retailer to offer free credit monitoring and identity theft protection following reports in early March that the company detected an unauthorized intrusion into its data network.



Target was quick to offer credit monitoring and identify theft services to its shoppers following revelations of a data breach during the height of last year’s holiday season. In Target’s case, an estimated 70 million customers were affected, making the offering of such services a costly proposition.



Sally Beauty should fare better since the company previously disclosed that fewer than 25,000 customer records containing payment card data were affected. However, that initial estimate could grow larger as an ongoing investigation may reveal additional information containing payment card data may have been illegally accessed and removed from its systems.



The company stressed that it will not speculate on the scope of its recent data security incident until the forensic review progresses because experience with such incidents at other retailers has taught that it is difficult to ascertain the extent of a data breach incident until the required forensic review is complete.