Home Depot says hackers who stole payment-card details of millions of customers also stole 53 million email addresses.
The retail giant said hackers accessed its network with a vendor’s username and password between April and September 2014.
The company had previously revealed that 56 million debit and credit card details were also stolen in the hack.
Analysts say it is one of the largest data breaches on record, surpassing a similar incident at retailer Target.
Home Depot says hackers who stole payment-card details of millions of customers also stole 53 million email addresses
Home Depot insisted on November 6 that the file containing the email addresses did not contain passwords or other sensitive personal information.
It also warned customers to be on guard against further phishing scams that might trick them into sharing personal information.
Customers that have been affected in the US and Canada will be notified and offered credit monitoring, the company added.
The latest update came just weeks after Home Depot disclosed the data breach, saying 56 million credit and debit card details were taken.
The company said it was still investigating the incident.
The incident follows a similar case involving Target, which was targeted by hackers in December 2013.
Target said payment and personal data from as many as 70 million customers was taken.
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New Secret Service director Julia Pierson’s personal information has been hacked and published online according to new claims now under federal investigation.
The hacking would be the latest in a string of such incidents against top officials that include first lady Michelle Obama and CIA Director John Brennan.
The information on the website included a Social Security number, phone numbers, and a credit report that includes accounts with The Home Depot, Sears, and Macy’s.
It was unclear how much of the data that appeared on www.exposed.re was accurate or who posted it.
The website appeared to have information about other government officials and celebrities that had been published online previously at another Internet address, www.exposed.su.
That address appears to have been taken down after its launch last month.
Julia Pierson’s personal information has been hacked in her first days as Secret Service director
In that one-month period the former site was viewed more than a half a million times, Information Week reports. The latest site reports more than 770,000 page views and counting.
“We are investigating and we are aware of the matter,” a Secret Service spokesman said without commenting further.
Julia Pierson was sworn into office on March 27 and is the first woman to head the Secret Service which protects the US president.
An FBI spokeswoman said they are aware of the reports but she would not say whether the federal bureau was investigating them.
The Internet domain country code for the island of Reunion is .re, while .su was the domain code for the Soviet Union.
A new credit card rule going into effect Sunday, January 27, 2013, could cost you more when shopping with a credit card at some stores.
Visa and Mastercard have agreed to let merchants add a service charge equal to the cost of processing a credit transaction to the bottom line.
The cost of processing is usually 1.5 to 3%, and merchants are capped at a 4% fee under the agreement.
The rule change was made as part of settling an antitrust suit brought by retailers.
Merchants will still not be allowed to add a surcharge to debit card transactions.
However, few stores seem interested in raising their customer’s costs.
“We have discussed the settlement with many, many merchants, and not a single merchant we have spoken to plans to surcharge,” said Craig Sherman, spokesman for the National Retail Federation, which was not involved in the lawsuit.
Wal-Mart, Target, Sears and Home Depot all told NBC News that they had no plans to add a credit card surcharge.
California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma and Texas all ban credit card surcharges.
Both Visa and MasterCard have rules requiring retailers to handle credit cards the same way in every store regardless of location, so if a chain has a store in a state where surcharges are banned then none of its locations would be allowed to have a surcharge.
Under the settlement terms, a merchant adding surcharges on Visa or MasterCard would have to do the same with American Express cards, but that company prohibits surcharge fees.
“The bottom line is that very few retailers would be able to surcharge under the settlement, and that the vast majority don’t want to surcharge even if they could,” Craig Sherman said.
“In the brick-and-mortar world, no one who does any sort of volume business is going to want to surcharge because it will drive their customer crazy and slow down transactions,” agreed Ed Mierzwinski, Director of Consumer Programs at U.S. PIRG.
With the exception of small retailers, credit surcharges are not a major issue for most businesses.
A new credit card rule going into effect Sunday, January 27, 2013, could cost you more when shopping with a credit card at some stores
Still, over time they could become popular as a way for stores to make extra money.
That’s because stores already factor in the cost of processing a credit care when they price their merchandise. Unless they dropped their prices, second charge would be double-dipping at the loss of the consumer.
“We shouldn’t have gotten to the point, but unfortunately because of the court settlement we have,” said Edgar Dworsky, founder of ConsumerWorld.org.
“There’s no one standing up for consumers and saying that this is really bad.”
He notes that in Australia, where surcharging originated in 2003, extra charges have boomed to the point where one-third of retailers charge extra to use a credit card.
Advocacy group Consumer Action warns shoppers to watch their receipts and argue any fees that don’t belong.
“Customers shouldn’t stand for it,” said Ruth Susswein, Consumer Action’s deputy director of national priorities.
“Our advice is to tell them you don’t like the fee and this makes you want to take your business elsewhere.”
If a retailer plans to add a surcharge they are require to post a notification at the store’s entrance.
The exact surcharge per cent needn’t be disclosed until the sale.
Online stores with a surcharge will not be required to have a notice until shoppers reach the page where credit cards are first mentioned, which is most often the final step of checkout.
“We’re not convinced this is going to be an issue,” Ruth Susswein said.
“They may never do it, but as individual consumers we need to be aware.”
