Hannaford Grocery chain suffers a large scale data theft.

[MikeA]

On March 17th, The Hannaford grocery chain disclosed information in regards to a huge data breach they fell victim to.

The toll counts up to 4.2 million Credit Card accounts whose information was siphoned off-shore by a "new and sophisticated" malware that found itself on all of the approximately 300 chained stores.

The Secret Service, who not only protects our favorite President, is currently investigating the matter, and the associated press is still awaiting further elaboration of the processes and resolution of crime.


What really leaves a bitter taste, is that this is not the first, and plausibly not the last security failure that payment systems have suffered. The record high for stolen account information is at around 100 million in one breach at TJX Cos. of Framingham.

And while many establishments that have been victimized in this manner, were lacking in security, this latest account with Hannaford was not such a case.

"Hannaford... had met compliance standards set by Visa Inc. and other card companies".

While loss for Hannaford will be grievous, how about those of whom that have or will have their identities stolen because of this?

[the Boston Globe via the Register]

[benjaminwright]

Legally speaking, we can't expect the PCI to keep pace with the criminals. Therefore the legal system (Federal Trade Commission) is wrong to punish merchants like Hannaford and TJX for credit card break-ins. --Ben