Dive Brief

• Neiman Marcus Group Ltd. said Saturday that hackers breached its servers and obtained access to payment information from visitors to its Dallas-area stores.
• A forensics firm Jan. 1 confirmed reports from the retailer’s credit card processor that unauthorized payments occurred from compromised credit cards used at Neiman Marcus stores in mid-December.
• The confirmation comes after a similar report from Target regarding a mid-December breach of some 110 million customer credit cards at its stores. Neiman Marcus did not disclose the extent of its problem.
• Neiman Marcus is working with the Secret Service and notifying customers who may have been affected.

Dive Insight

While there were some reports that the Target breach was an inside job, the news from Dallas and media reports of other possible breaches of other major U.S. retailers are leading some to believe the hacks were a part of a more widespread and possibly coordinated effort during the busy holiday retail season. Although credit card companies and banks protect consumers who have experienced unauthorized charges, those companies leave the disclosures up to the retailers. The drip-drip-drip of this news is likely to shake customers’ and banks’ confidence in major retailers’ data-security systems. This looks like war as retailers make moves to better armor themselves against this new wave of large-scale hacking thievery.