The recent breach that affected nearly 70 million Target customers was ultimately based out of Russia. A cybersecurity firm called iSight conducted an investigation and determined the source originated from Russia. The iSight report also pinpointed that a high degree of skill was displayed as a handful of other retailers were affected as well. High-risk credit card processing was compromised through the terminals of Target. A virus was implemented into the credit card machines and allowed for data to be collected. The main issue that arose was that the anti-virus could not detect the malware that was installed. The people who imposed the malware are part of an underground that is responsible for composing the code.
A retail analyst pinpointed some dire news as the possibility of another breach has an 80 percent chance of occurring again. Much of the information about the other breaches are not being released to the public. The Wall Street Journal also shows that the programming code was written in a Russian dialect which means that it was tied to a crime syndicate in the Soviet Union. The Retail Analyst states that the hackers were very educated people as they had knowledge in Computer Science and Mathematics. Many employment opportunities are lacking in the region of Eastern Europe which resulted in the Target and retail hack. As a result of the hack, VISA has decided to move away from utilizing a magnetic strip and impose a PIN system and a much more secure chip. The new system is expected to be implemented by the year 2015. An infrastructure change will also need to be imposed across Target worldwide. Reuters also states that six other attacks occurred across merchants. The retailer called Neiman Marcus also experienced a data breach that occurred in the month of December.
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