Remember that “suspicious activity” that Home Depot was looking into last week?
Six days later, the company has at last publicly confirmed that the “suspicious activity” was a breach of its payments system. Credit card data was exposed, though Home Depot is quick to note that PINs were not. If you used a credit card at Home Depot in the past 4-5 months, you should consider it stolen.
Here’s what we know so far:
- The breach only affected its U.S. and Canadian stores… though “only” is a strange word to use, given that would account for the majority of Home Depot’s 2,266 locations.
- HomeDepot.com transactions were not affected.
- Home Depot has confirmed earlier reports that the breach was in place going back as far as April.
- The company will offer credit monitoring to anyone who has used a card at one of their stores since April.
If you used a credit card at Home Depot any time since April, you’re going to want to call your bank ASAP to get a new card shipped out sooner than later. While you might not be on the hook for any fraudulent charges that might occur, getting them wiped out is still a pretty huge hassle.
[Photo by Mike Mozart; used under Creative Commons]