Dive Brief:
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Women’s apparel retailer Bebe Inc. confirmed Thursday that there was a breach at its stores, as reported earlier in the day by Krebs on Security.
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Cards used at Bebe stores across the United States, in Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands were filched between Nov. 8 and 26. The website appears to be unaffected.
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Customers may be avoiding physical stores due to credit-card breach worries, to the point of affecting Black Friday brick-and-mortar sales, according to preliminary research by consulting firm KPMG.
Dive Insight:
This is another breach made public by Kreb on Security and not by the retailer itself. Bebe Inc. is offering customers the usual credit-card monitoring, and, as in other retail breaches, consumers won’t be liable for charges. But that doesn’t mean, of course, that consumers are at ease when their data has been compromised.
For one thing, it’s often not just credit card numbers that are vulnerable; it can also be Social Security numbers, addresses, and other identifying information. Plus, until their cards are replaced, they don’t have access to their credit lines or, in the case of debit cards, to their own funds if they’ve been compromised. Retailers must get better at addressing and preventing these kinds of breaches; consumers will continue to grow more weary of them. And that, as reflected in the KPMG study, is only going to hurt retailers.
