ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 14, 2014
STL
NEW YORK • Target Corp. said in its annual report that a massive security breach has hurt its image and business, while spawning dozens of legal actions, and it noted it can’t estimate how big the financial tab will end up being.
The disclosure Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission came as the nation’s second-largest discounter said separately that security software picked up on suspicious activity after a cyberattack was launched, but it decided not to take immediate action.
The acknowledgement comes after Bloomberg Newsweek reported Thursday that Target’s security team in Bangalore received security alerts on Nov. 30 that indicated malicious software had appeared in its network. It then flagged the security team at its home office in Minneapolis.
“Like any large company, each week at Target there are a vast number of technical events that take place and are logged,” said Target spokeswoman Molly Snyder in a statement. “Through our investigation, we learned after these criminals entered our network, a small amount of their activity was logged and surfaced to our team. That activity was evaluated and acted upon. Based on their interpretation and evaluation of that activity, the team determined that it did not warrant immediate follow up. ”