The mountains of data apparently taken from $15 billion retailer TJX were taken a lot earlier than had previously been announced, with the intrusions starting in 2005 and some of the impacted transactions dating back to 2003, TJX said in a statement issued Feb. 21.
As TJX works its way through various investigations from a group of state attorneys general, congressional inquiries and several class-action lawsuits, details about the timing of the initial data breach (and any subsequent data breaches), how long it had gone on before it was detected and how long consumer information was stored will prove critical.
Although questions about how the breach happened are important, some of the probes will also explore how this substantial a breach could have gone on for so long.
The last official statements from TJX said the breach—now being referred to as “an intrusion”—started in May 2006 and that they were not discovered until mid-December 2006.
The Feb. 21 statement said “TJX now believes its computer system was also intruded upon in July 2005 and on various subsequent dates in 2005. TJX continues to believe there was no compromise of customer data after mid-December 2006.”
Read the full story on eWEEK.com: TJX: Data Theft Began in 2005; Data Taken from 2003.
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