Home Depot confirmed Monday afternoon that its payment data systems have been breached. The confirmation comes less than a week after the retailer first disclosed the possibility of a breach.
In an attempt to help customers, Home Depot also said on that it is offering free identity protection services to customers who may have been affected by the breach.
In confirming the data breach, Home Depot said that brick and mortar stores in U.S. and Canada have been affected, while stores in Mexico and transactions that occurred on HomeDepot.com seem to have been spared.
The company said that it is investigating transactions from April 2014 going forward  that is, transactions that have occurred in the past five months  and that while the full scope, scale and impact of the breach has yet to be determined, “there is no evidence that debit PIN numbers were compromised.â€Â
In the release confirming the breach, Home Depot chairman and CEO Frank Blake stated,
“We apologize for the frustration and anxiety this causes our customers,†adding that he thanks customers for their patience as his company tries to resolve the issue.
“We owe it to our customers to alert them that we now have enough evidence to confirm that a breach has indeed occurred. It’s important to emphasize that no customers will be responsible for fraudulent charges to their accounts,â€Â
Following the confirmation of the data breach, shares of Home Depot, which closed regular trading with an 0.9% loss, ticked down another 0.9% in Monday’s after-hours trading session. The stock is down 2.5% since first disclosing that a breach may have occurred; year-to-date, it’s up 11%.[signoff predefined=”Enjoy this?” icon=”icon-users”][/signoff]
