hdimage

Surely you have heard by now, that Home Depot Has confirmed a massive payment data systems Breach.

If you have shopped at Home depot in the past 5 months you need to check your credit card and bank statements, as far back as April 2014.

Home depot states their is no evidence of PIN numbers being compromised, and it doesn't affect customers who shopped online or in Mexico. Home Depot is also offering free identity protection services, including credit monitoring, and insitsts no customers will be held liable for fraudulent charges.

You can visit  Home Depot’s web site  to read more and how you may eligible for free identity protection services

Echos of Target's massive breach

At the same time, the news also arrived a full six days after security blog KrebsOnSecurity first reported signs of the potential breach. Specifically, the blog claims sources close to the investigation say the breach appeared to stem from a new variant of the malware responsible for exposing 40 million debit and credit card accounts at Target  (NYSE: TGT  ) over a three-week period last year. What's more, the cards in question first turned up for sale roughly a week ago in multiple batches on the same underground cybercrime website that sold Target's stolen data.

However, KrebsOnSecurity warns, given the comparatively long time span during which this malware has apparently been siphoning data from The Home Depot's systems, this new breach "could be many times larger than Target."

Home Depot says it "continues to determine the full scope, scale, and impact of the breach." So unfortunately, short of knowing this will be a long, expensive battle, it's virtually impossible at this point to precisely estimate the extent of the fallout. For now, investors will need to hurry up and wait for the next update from the home improvement retail juggernaut