J.Crew notified a group of customers that an unauthorized third-party accessed their accounts nearly a year ago using their login credentials and obtained personal information, including the last four digits of payment card numbers, expiration dates, card types and billing addresses as well as order numbers, shipping confirmation numbers and shipment status.
In a filing with the California Attorney General’s Office, J.Crew said it had disabled affected accounts and directed customers to contact the J. Crew Customer Care Center to reset their passwords. “We do not have reason to believe that the unauthorized party gained access to any additional information within your account,” the company said in the notification.
“For users, there is nothing good about the credential stuffing attack at J. Crew, but there are some useful lessons to be learned,” said Jonathan Knudsen, senior security strategist at Synopsis, calling for users to practice good cyber hygiene, including changing the password on other sites.
Because J.Crew didn’t reveal the attack publicly until almost a year after it occurred, Knudsen said hackers may have already used the information in other attacks.
“Businesses face an even higher risk when employee data appears as part of a credential dump or account sale, particularly if employees have used corporate addresses to sign up for personal services,” Emily Wilson, vice president of research at Terbium Labs, maintained. “Corporate contact details stand out starkly against consumer details in a big credential leak, putting that organization at an increased risk for phishing or direct account takeover, especially if employees are re-using passwords between corporate and professional accounts.”
She explained that “a set of corporate credentials in a third-party breach is an open invitation to walk straight into an employee account – and a corporate network by extension.” Businesses, she said, “need to know if and when their information appears online, regardless of the original source of the leak. Even if it’s not your breach, it’s still definitely going to be your problem.”
