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Target shoppers can now sign up for free credit monitoring and identity theft assistance, which the discount chain is offering to all customers affected by its security breach. Target will pay for the services for 12 months, provided by Experian through its ProtectMyID alert system. After a year, consumers must pay for the service themselves if they choose to continue. To enroll, first visit CreditMonitoring.Target.com to request an activation code. You'll need to provide your name and email address. The activation code will be sent by email, arriving in one to five days, Target said. Once you have your unique...

This baby-faced teen is a key suspect in developing the software that was used in the massive security breach that hit as many as 110 million Target shoppers last holiday season, according to a shocking new report. In addition, the malicious software, or malware, has infected the payment systems of six other retailers — a possible sign that a half-dozen other attacks are underway, a California cyber-security firm said in the report. The firm, IntelCrawler, which has tracked the malware’s architect for months, ut/press08″>said on Friday that its main suspect is this boy in the photo. He’s a 17-year-old with...

The holiday data breach at Target Corp. appeared to be part of a broad and highly sophisticated international hacking campaign against multiple retailers, according to a report prepared by federal and private investigators that was sent to financial-services companies and retailers. […] Parts of the malicious computer code used against Target’s credit-card readers had been on the Internet’s black market since last spring and were partly written in Russian, people familiar with the report said. Both details suggest the attack may have ties to organized crime in the former Soviet Union, former U.S. officials said. …

Last weekend, Target finally disclosed at least one cause of the massive data breach that exposed personal and financial information on more than 110 million customers: Malicious software that infected point-of-sale systems at Target checkout counters. Today’s post includes new information about the malware apparently used in the attack, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter.

Target has increased the estimate for the number of customers exposed in the massive hacking attack between Thanksgiving and December 14. It now appears at least 70 million consumers had their credit cards compromised. Also, Neiman-Marcus announced that they, too, were victims of a cyber attack over Christmas. And in an exclusive report, Reuters is saying that several other well known retailers were also hacked over the holidays. Neiman Marcus said an outside forensics firm discovered evidence on January 1 that indicated the retailer had been the victim of a cyber attack. It disclosed the breach nine days later, after...

Target's disclosure that hackers stole customers' names, home addresses, phone numbers and email addresses suggests that the crime was an inside job, a fraud analyst said Friday. The new batch of stolen identity information -- from up to 70 million additional Target customers -- is not stored on the point-of-sale devices used to pilfer the payment card data, said Avivah Litan, a fraud analyst at information technology firm Gartner. The fact that the thieves got access to a second data source makes it more likely they had the help of an insider.

Target is in hot water again after it emerged that a reported 40,000 gift cards sold over the holidays were not properly activated - leaving them with no value. The latest debacle comes just a week after the retail giant suffered a massive data breach which saw hackers access information to an estimated 40 million customer credit and debit cards. Now the store is under fire for scanning the wrong code on gift cards when handing them over to shoppers, meaning that the value was not activated, KMSP in Minnesota reported. It means that when the recipients of the cards...

A California woman opening up what she thought was a new iPod on Christmas morning was surprised and dismayed to find nothing but school supplies — pink erasers and index cards — inside the box instead. Similar to the iPad Mini purchased by a Florida man at a Walmart that turned out to be a couple of books instead, the iPod purchased by Jim Nevarde for his wife at a Mira Mesa, Calif., Target store was swapped and fraudulently returned. -snip Thankfully, the Target employees were understanding of his plight and provided him with another iPod. But Nevarde wasn’t about to leave...

**SNIP** "I received notice that my current insurance was no longer qualified. I've had three heart attacks in the last six years. Healthcare is something that's essential. My life depends on it," Westby says in the ad. "Congressman Nolan, ObamaCare needs to be repealed. It was a big lie." **SNIP** The National Republican Congressional Committee released a similar radio ad earlier this month targeting Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, D-N.H., who voted against a measure to repeal the law in May. The ad features a woman describing her husband's health problems. “Because of ObamaCare, our health plan no longer exists, and our...

Target confirmed Friday that debit card PIN data was stolen in its recent massive breach, reversing its earlier stance that the codes were not part of the hack. However, the retailer believes the PINs remain "safe and secure." In a statement, Target spokeswoman Molly Snyder said the PINs are "strongly encrypted" and were never stored on Target's systems in plain text. In other words, from the moment a customer entered a PIN after swiping a debit card, Target's payment system translated that number into an indecipherable string of code. Target claims that the PINs remained encrypted after they were stolen....

After years of cuts in state subsidies and growing resistance to rising tuition, U.S. colleges and universities are starting to unwind decades of administrative bloat and back-office waste that helped push up costs and tuition. The State University of New York system shaved $48 million in the past two years by cutting unused software licenses and consolidating senior administrators. The University of California, Berkeley, cut $70 million since 2011 by centralizing purchasing and laying off a layer of middle managers, among other things. And the University of Kansas revamped its back-office operations to save about $5 million in 2013. One...

The final weekend of Christmas sales is the worst possible time to have a security breach, but that's what happened at Target. Sales are down at least three percent following a security breach in which hackers stole millions of credit cards. Let's back up a bit and review what happened. 40 Million Credit, Debit Cards Compromised On December 19, Target disclosed that hackers gained access to as many as 40 million credit and debit cards used by customers of Target during the height of the holiday shopping season, in one of the biggest data breaches in history. The Washington Post...

With Target already reeling from a massive hack that left up to 40 million credit and debit cards compromised, The New York Times now reports that all that data has been pouring into the black market since the break-in. With the breach taking place between Black Friday and December 15th, criminals on hundreds of illicit card-selling markets have likely had access to consumer information for weeks to date. "Guests will not be held responsible for fraud" Security experts, including security blogger Brian Krebs, say that criminals sell stolen credit cards in bulk, with individual cards going for as little as...

No doubt you have heard about the security breach that jeopardized possibly 40 million Target store customers' credit card accounts. But conscientious pro-lifers are probably not among them. Target has been owned by Dayton-Hudson Corporation, a big contributor to Planned Parenthood. Dayton-Hudson, which renamed itself Target Corporation and consolidated their upscale stores into Marshall Field's, still gives to Planned Parenthood through their foundation while claiming that Target does not give to Planned Parenthood. Several years ago, they decided to stop giving to the abortion provider and announced the change only to flip flop the next day after blowback from pro-aborts....

<p>"Duck Dynasty" isn't just a smash-hit TV show, it's a merchandising powerhouse.</p> <p>It's too soon to tell if retailers will pull the clan's products from their shelves after Phil Robertson made homophobic comments in an interview with GQ magazine. However the A&E network did suspend the reality show star.</p>

Payment card data was stolen from an unknown number of Target Corp customers starting on the busy Black Friday weekend in a major breach at the U.S. retailer, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Secret Service is investigating, according to a spokesman for the agency, which safeguards the nation's payment systems. Target officials did not respond to requests for comment. Investigators believe the data was obtained via software installed on machines that customers use to swipe magnetic strips on their cards when paying for merchandise at Target stores, according to the person who was not authorized to...

The Obama administration launched an attempt Tuesday to limit the same class of politically active non-profit groups the IRS was accused of targeting last summer. Under the proposed new rules, organizations that fall under the tax-exempt 501(c)(4) umbrella would also be more clearly identified during campaigns. The new guidance would curtail activities such as running ads, distributing campaign literature and other get-out-the-vote initiatives. The groups in question are able to raise millions of dollars to influence elections. Smaller organizations that are similarly classified were the subject of unfair targeting practices earlier this year by IRS employees, leading to the eventual...

Governor Palin posted this to her Facebook page on Tuesday night with a link to the review she wrote for Breitbart News about Peter Schweizer's new book, Extortion. We are reposting what she wrote in its entirety because we feel she makes an excellent point drawn from her personal experience.

(CNSNews.com) - Speaking with former President Bill Clinton yesterday, President Barack Obama suggested that under Obamacare young women may get back more in “free contraceptive care” each month than they pay out in premiums. "And because all the insurers who participate are required to, for example, provide free preventive care, free contraceptive care, that young woman, she may make up what she’s spending on premiums just on her monthly use of health care,” said Obama. This was based on Obama's assumptions that a young woman would in fact be using some contraceptives on a regular monthly basis and that her...

Russia’s early warning radars detected the launch of two ballistic rockets in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, Russia’s Defense Ministry stated. Israel later claimed responsibility for firing the target test rockets. The launch took place at 06:16 GMT Tuesday, according to Russia's Ministry of Defense. The trajectory of the missiles is reported to have been from the central part of the Mediterranean Sea towards the eastern landmass. Both rockets have allegedly fallen into the sea, RIA Novosti news agency reported. Russia’s President Putin has already been informed about the incident by Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu. The Syrian embassy in Moscow currently...