Neiman Marcus, a luxury department store, is a victim of a hacking attack that started in July 2013. While the problem has been known for a while, it took the company a while to plug the breach and resolve the problem completely. In fact, the problem was only fully contained at the end of last week.
Neiman Marcus has confirmed that the hacking incident involved the theft of customer information. The confirmation was made last week that the company has started investigating a string of suspicious events involving a number of credit cards that were used to pay for in-store purchases.
The company has also clarified that only customers who shopped at Neiman Marcus locations were affected and online customers can continue to shop without worrying.
The company released more information on the data breach last Thursday and Neiman Marcus CEO Karen Katz has also issued an official apology to customers affected by the hacking incident. Katz clarified that personal information about customers such as birth dates and social security numbers remain secure and were not involved in the data breach.
"We deeply regret and are very sorry that some of our customers' payment cards were used fraudulently after making purchases at our stores," said Katz in a letter to Neiman Marcus customers. "We want you always to feel confident shopping at Neiman Marcus, and your trust in us is our absolute priority."
The breach was resolved after the company hired a third party security firm to tackle the problem. The breach involved the use of malware and the security agency has been able to disable the offending piece of software with the help of federal law enforcement agencies.
The Neiman Marcus hacking incident is the latest in a recent round of hacks involving companies like Microsoft and Target. While the Microsoft hacking incidents were related to the Syrian Electronic Army, Neiman Marcus and Target were both victims of attacks aimed at gaining access to customer credit card details. While the two hacking attacks on both retailers are of similar nature, no clear information has been released whether the attacks were related to each other.
