FBI Warns Retailers That Target Fiasco Could Happen to Them

Jan 24, 2014 04:10 PM EST | Jordan Ecarma

Consumers who weathered the Target scare shouldn't think they're out of the woods yet.

The FBI is warning that more cyber attacks are likely after the agency discovered around 20 cases similar to the Target hacking fiasco that exposed millions of customers' credit cards, Reuters reported.

The similar cases used the same kind of malicious software that infiltrated Target's system to compromise 70 million customer accounts.

In a confidential report, the FBI warned retailers to beware the risks associated with "memory-parsing" malware that can breach such systems as cash registers and credit card machines.

"We believe POS malware crime will continue to grow over the near term, despite law enforcement and security firms' actions to mitigate it," said the FBI report, seen by Reuters.

"The accessibility of the malware on underground forums, the affordability of the software and the huge potential profits to be made from retail POS systems in the United States make this type of financially motivated cyber crime attractive to a wide range of actors," the FBI said.

An FBI spokeswoman confirmed the report to Reuters.

The information stolen from Target customers included addresses, phone numbers and credit and debit card numbers.

Target has announced that it will offer one year of free credit card monitoring and identity theft protection to those who visited U.S. stores on Black Friday through when the breach was discovered.

A recent similar data breach was at luxury chain Neiman Marcus. The hacking took place from July 16 to Oct. 30 of last year, exposing 1.1 million customer cards.

The inventor of the malware used on Target is still in question. Some outlets earlier reported that the software was created by a 17-year-old Russian boy.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that the malware may be partly the work of Rinat Shabaev, a 23-year-old who lives in southern Russia.

Security researchers said that Shabaev offered to sell copies of a version of the software used in the Target breach for $2,000 each.

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