Last year in September, Home Depot confirmed that the company had been attacked by hackers since April. As a result, 56 million Home Depot accounts were put at risk. The company anticpated to pay $62 million to fit the bill of the attack. Of those expenses are: legal fees, overtime compensation for staff, causing an estimated $90 million in costs for banks to replace 7.4 million debt and credit cards. Staff within Home Depot, who chose to remain anonymous, stated that the company’s information security department struggled with old software and high turnover. Home Depot resisted using the Endpoint security feature of Symantec’s cybersecurity program; which is a feature that tracks and alerts system administrators of suspicious activity. The company refused to use this security feature even though security specialists suggested that they did so. More appalling, the company did not encrypt customer card data until September 2014. Of course, we are not going to prevent every attack; cyberattacks are inevitable. However, there is no excuse why a large companies like Home Depot did not take the necessary steps to protect themselves. A company has much at stake and they at least owe it to their customers, if no one else to provide adequte protection. Now, customers might think twice about purchasing from Home Depot as a result of improper preparation. It would have been one thing if the proper steps of security were taken ahead of time but it is inexcusable not to take the proper precautions. Preparation is essential in securing our Homeland, without preparation we can expect an early demise. Home Depot was not the only company attacked, however, Target, J.P. Morgan, Staples, Healthcare.gov, Neiman Marcus and many others also suffered cyberattacks that left customers susceptible.
Written by Bria White, a Homeland Security Graduate Assistant for the University of the District of Columbia.
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