How The 2013 Data Breach Impacted Target 's Finances Essay

A direct cyberattack in 2014 to JPMorgan Chase caused a compromised of accounts effecting a total of 76 million households and seven million small businesses. We are clearly, in times when consumer confidence in the digital operations of corporate America is on shaky ground. In directly, banking is taking the brunt of the fallout but major stores also have breaches which of course are directly related to their financial data. Store like, Target, Home Depot and a number of other retailers have experienced major data breaches. 40 million cardholders and 70 million others were compromised at Target alone in 2013 and an attack at Home Depot in September, 2013 affected 56 million cardholders.

Even though Target is ranked currently 36 in the fortune 500 companies and have over 1750 stores, they are still very susceptible to being a victim of a cyber attack. In 2013 Target fell victim to a security breach on their system. Roughly around Thanksgiving of 2013 someone had installed malware in Target’s security and payment system enabling the hackers to steal credit card and personal information. “Six months earlier the company began installing a $1.6 million malware detection tool made by the computer security firm FireEye, whose customers also include the CIA and the Pentagon.” (BloombergBusiness) In place was a very effective security system, but when the attacked happen on November 30, FireEye spotted the hackers and Bangalore, a third party cyber security company hired by Target alerted the IT team at corporate office in Minneapolis. There was no response from Target’s Corporate IT team and therefore led to the 40 million credit card numbers and 70 million addresses, phone numbers

During the last Christmas season, Target announced that their data security was breached. According to David Lazarus in Los Angeles Times, Target stated that roughly 110 million customers’ information was illegally taken from their database. The information included their credit/debit card info, phone numbers, and email addresses. Target is one of the most popular grocery stores in the U.S.; they have a substantial amount of consumers. Because of this incident, consumers' trusts for the store have been decreasing. Worrying about losing its customers, the company offered a free year of credit monitoring and identity-theft protection, so the customers will feel more secure. Not only Target, some other large retailers also faced the same issues. They want their customers to trust that the companies can protect private data. However, should we not worry? Data breaches have been going on for about a decade, but we have not seriously thought about the issue. In order to protect people’s privacy, the federal government should make new laws concerning companies’ handling of customer information.

Consequently, Target posted a massive growth in earnings per share of 40% to $1.60 per share, compared with the same period last year. Whereas, its quarterly dividends were standing around $0.60 per share, indicating a payout ratio around 40% based on income.

The Target Corporation has undergone many changes due to the 2013 security breach where hackers stole personal information from credit and debit cards of at least 70 million customers. Target sales and reputation has dropped from this instance, thus eliciting changes in their security systems, changes in management, and a few policy changes in handling customer information. With the public eye on the corporation’s handling of the situation, Target has been communicating these changes through various means. The changes they needed to communicate were informing customers of the security breach, addressing the bad press coverage to shareholders, downsizing of employees, and

Target's sales revenues have consistently grown since 2008, in spite of economical challenges. Ending sales for 2011 topped $69 million, a $2 million increase over the previous year. Sales increases show that their marketing, advertising and communication styles are working to bring in new customers and to retain the customers they have.

Target Corporation is a retail chain specializing in household goods, clothing, food, and accessories at discounted prices. The retail chain’s history started back in 1902 as Goodfellows and in 1910 as The Dayton Company. Initially, the chain specialized in “furnishings, fabrics and decorations for business and other public institutions” (“Target Corporation,” 2016, p. 5). Eventually, Target went public in 1967 and on to acquire Mervyn’s in the 1970s where they became the seventh largest retailer in the United States. Target operates in the United States, where it is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota and as of January 31, 2015 Target employs over 300,000 people. “The company recorded revenues of $72,618 million in the financial year ended January 2015, the operating profit of the company was $4,535 million, [and] the net profit was $2,449 million” (“Target

In 2013, target corporation experienced a serious data breach where its security, as well as the payment system,was breached. The security breach was so intense in which case; it compromised over 40 million credit as well as debit card numbers. Furthermore, 70 million phone numbers, addresses, and other personal information was affected(Krebs, 2014).The attack was made without the knowledge of Target Corp. until mid-December when the department of defense notified the company that its system was being attacked. One problem that came out clear, in this case, was the fact that Target Corp. had been notified of the attack

During the dates of November 27 through December 2013, the department store Target experienced a data breach in which approximately 40 million customers credit and debit cards were exposed. During this breach, customer’s personal information may have also been exposed for use of possible fraud. January 2014, Target

One of the largest examples of a technological privacy violation in history was the Target data breach of 2013. The Target Corporation is one of the leading innovators of the retail industry. They introduced the concept of designer partnerships, making them one of the leading clothing stores in the country (Corporate Target 1). Unfortunately, the company was targeted by Russian hackers shortly before the Christmas of 2013. In this hack, personal information, including customer names, mailing addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and credit card information, of seventy million people was stolen and used for fraud (Forbes 1). This has raised concerns over how well the company can ensure that their consumer’s privacy is protected.

The three-year return on the stock price of Target Corp is 55.79. The stock is performing very well increasing each year. In January 4 2015, Target Corp was at $77.13. In January 4, 2016, Target Corp is 71.38. In January 3, 2017, Target Corp was at $71.44. The three-year return on the stock price of Costco is $173.22. The stock is performing very well, increasing each year. In 2015, the stock was at $145.56 on January 4, 2015. In 2016, the stock went to $151.11 on same time last year, and 162.83 on January 3, 2017. Both of these stocks are comparable by steadily increasing. This indicates that their sales are increasing which means consumers are contributing all the time.

Target a large retail corporation that operates over 1,700 stores across the United States. They also operate as an online retailer at target.com. In 2012 the retailer earned more than $73 billion dollars in revenue and grew their sales by 5.1% from the previous year. Looking at the revenue and sales growth rate it is hard to fathom that more money could not be spent to ensure that consumer data is protected as much as possible. As information security specialists one of the worst things that can happen is our network gets infiltrated and customer information is stolen. On December 19, 2013 Target released a statement stating that they have had an information

The Target data breach remains one of the most notable breaches in history, it was the first time a CEO of a major corporation was fired due to a security event. The breach received an enormous amount of attention, it caused corporations and individuals to change the way they think about information security and data protection. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas 2013 hackers gained access to 40 million customer credit cards and personal data of 70 million Target customers. The intruders slipped in by using stolen credentials and from there gained access to vulnerable servers on Targets network to launch their attack and steal sensitive customer data from the POS cash registers. All this occurred without a response from Targets security operations center, even though security systems notified them of suspicious activity. The data was then sold on the black market for an estimated $53 million dollars. However, the cost to Target, creditors, and banks exceeded half of a billion dollars. This report will review how the infiltration occurred, what allowed the breach to occur including Targets response, and finally who was impacted by the security event.

In December 2013, Target was attacked by a cyber-attack due to a data breach. Target is a widely known retailer that has millions of consumers flocking every day to the retailer to partake in the stores wonders. The Target Data Breach is now known as the largest data breach/attack surpassing the TJX data breach in 2007. “The second-biggest attack struck TJX Companies, the parent company of TJMaxx and Marshall’s, which said in 2007 that about 45 million credit cards and debit cards had been compromised.” (Timberg, Yang, & Tsukayama, 2013) The data breach occurred to Target was a strong swift kick to the guts to not only the retailer/corporation, but to employees and consumers. The December 2013 data breach, exposed Target in a way that many

Target Corporation is having a very stable financial policy and dividend policy. From the historical financial data, Target had debt $11,044M, $11,202M, $10,599M, $17,471M, and $19,882M in the year of 2005,2006,2007,2008, and 2009 respectively. The long-term debt/equity ratio rises from 69.34% to 108%.