October 14, 2014 By Jaikumar Vijayan 2 min read

On Friday, Kmart became the latest in a string of major U.S. retailers to announce that cyberattackers had gained access to customer credit and debit card data after breaking into its point-of-sale (POS) network.

This breach is similar to those announced by Home Depot, Dairy Queen, SuperValu, UPS and several others in recent months. It is sure to heighten concerns about the continued vulnerability of U.S. payment system networks to cyberattacks nearly one year after a massive intrusion at Target exposed cardholder and other data belonging to over 100 million people.

In a prepared statement, Kmart’s parent company, Sears Holdings, said the intrusion appears to have occurred in early September. However, it remained undetected by Kmart’s information technology team until last Thursday. According to Sears, the cybercriminals infected Kmart’s store payment data systems with a form of malware that was untraceable by current antivirus software tools.

The attackers obtained certain customer credit and debit card data, but no debit card PINs, email addresses or Social Security numbers were compromised in the incident, Sears said. The number of Kmart store locations or customers that may have been affected by the breach was not disclosed, and no information is yet available on how the attackers gained access to Kmart’s POS network. The company joins a rapidly growing list of retailers that have been victimized by sophisticated POS system attacks in recent months.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Secret Service warned retailers of a data-stealing malware tool named Backoff that is being widely used by cybercriminals to steal data from POS systems. According to the two agencies, Backoff has infected systems belonging to at least 1,000 U.S. businesses, though some believe the actual number may be much greater.

Seven POS system vendors have confirmed that they have had multiple clients affected by Backoff. In many cases, the attackers have taken advantage of popular remote access tools such as Microsoft’s Remote Desktop, Chrome Remote Desktop and LogMeIn to gain access to privileged user accounts, which they have then used to extract cardholder data.

Kmart has not yet disclosed the nature of the malware that was used in the attack against its POS network, so it’s unclear whether the retailer was a victim of Backoff. Among the recent victims, only Dairy Queen identified the data-stealing malware as Backoff; however, given the earlier government warnings, it is highly likely that at least some of the others that have disclosed breaches so far are also victims of Backoff.

What’s worse, considering that at least 1,000 U.S. businesses have been hit by the malware, it’s a near certainty that several more retailers could announce similar breaches in the coming months.

Image Source: Flickr

More from

How will the Merck settlement affect the insurance industry?

3 min read - A major shift in how cyber insurance works started with an attack on the pharmaceutical giant Merck. Or did it start somewhere else?In June 2017, the NotPetya incident hit some 40,000 Merck computers, destroying data and forcing a months-long recovery process. The attack affected thousands of multinational companies, including Mondelēz and Maersk. In total, the malware caused roughly $10 billion in damage.NotPetya malware exploited two Windows vulnerabilities: EternalBlue, a digital skeleton key leaked from the NSA, and Mimikatz, an exploit…

3 Strategies to overcome data security challenges in 2024

3 min read - There are over 17 billion internet-connected devices in the world — and experts expect that number will surge to almost 30 billion by 2030.This rapidly growing digital ecosystem makes it increasingly challenging to protect people’s privacy. Attackers only need to be right once to seize databases of personally identifiable information (PII), including payment card information, addresses, phone numbers and Social Security numbers.In addition to the ever-present cybersecurity threats, data security teams must consider the growing list of data compliance laws…

ICS CERT predictions for 2024: What you need to know

4 min read - As we work through the first quarter of 2024, various sectors are continuously adapting to increasingly complex cybersecurity threats. Sectors like healthcare, finance, energy and transportation are all regularly widening their digital infrastructure, resulting in larger attack surfaces and greater risk exposure.Kaspersky just released their ICS CERT Predictions for this year, outlining the key cybersecurity challenges industrial enterprises will face in the year ahead. The forecasts emphasize the persistent nature of ransomware threats, the increasing prevalence of cosmopolitical hacktivism, insights…

Topic updates

Get email updates and stay ahead of the latest threats to the security landscape, thought leadership and research.
Subscribe today