While waiting for Target to announce exactly how attackers compromised its point-of-sale (POS) devices to steal roughly 40 million credit and debit cards in two and a half weeks, a payment processor for the retail giant – First Data Corporation – has denied being impacted in the breach.
“First Data processes some transactions for one of Target's acquirers, but we have no indication that our systems were involved in any of the incidents reported by Target,” a First Data spokesperson told SCMagazine.com in a Monday email.
First Data is a global company, but it processes payments for a number of retail titans, including Walmart and Home Depot. Neither a Walmart nor a Home Depot representative responded to an SCMagazine.com request for comment.
“The situation being reported by Target is a concern to all of us in the payments industry,” the First Data spokesperson said. “Data security is of paramount importance to First Data, which is why we work closely with our clients to protect cardholder data through our own system monitoring and the risk management solutions we offer our clients.”
Target announced on Dec. 19 that it had become the victim of an attack that enabled hackers to steal 40 million credit and debit cards, as well as CVV codes and PIN data. The card data stolen in the attack, which lasted from Nov. 27 to Dec. 15, quickly began turning up for sale in underground online marketplaces.
