Rockefeller, McCaskill Ask Target for Answers on Massive Data Breach

Senators seek information on circumstances that permitted the unauthorized breach of customers' personal information

January 14, 2014

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Following one of the nation’s largest breaches of consumers’ personal data in history, the Chairmen of the Senate Commerce Committee and the Consumer Protection Subcommittee are asking the President and CEO of Target for the latest findings on the circumstances that permitted unauthorized access to the financial and personally identifying information of as many as 110 million Americans during the busiest shopping time of the year. 

Chairman John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV (D-W.V.) and Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, wrote to Target asking for answers from the company’s information security officials, and advocating the need for greater protection for consumers. 

“It has been three weeks since the data breach was discovered, and new information continues to come out,” the Senators wrote. “We expect that your security experts have had time to fully examine the cause and impact of the breach and will be able to provide the Committee with detailed information.”

Last month, it was reported that some 40 million Target customers’ financial information, including credit card numbers, were compromised between November 27, 2013, and December 15, 2013. Last week, Target announced that the breach was much larger than previously known—that personally identifying information on an additional 70 million consumers was also stolen in this breach. As many as 110 million consumers who shopped at Target’s U.S. stores, including the company’s 36 locations in Missouri, could have been impacted by the breach.

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