Home Depot breach affected 53 million
NEW YORK – Hackers stole 53 million email addresses in addition to customers’ card data, Home Depot said Thursday.
The nation’s largest home improvement chain had disclosed the massive breach of 56 million debit and credit cards in September.
Home Depot’s breach surpassed Target’s pre-Christmas 2013 data theft, which compromised 40 million credit and debit cards and hurt sales and profits. Since late last year, Michaels, SuperValu and Neiman Marcus have been among a string of retailers that have also reported breaches, though they were smaller.
While shoppers appear to have grown numb to the hacks, the breaches have been forcing changes in retailing.
Home Depot reiterated Thursday that it will be activating chip-enabled checkout terminals at all of its U.S. stores by the end of the year.
Obama writes Iranian about militants
WASHINGTON – In a rare outreach to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Barack Obama has written a letter about the fight against Islamic State militants, a common enemy in Syria and Iraq, according to diplomatic sources.
The U.S. and Iran are each engaged in military efforts to degrade the Islamic State group, essentially putting the longtime foes on the same side in the campaign against the extremists. However, the Obama administration has repeatedly insisted that it is not coordinating and will not coordinate its military actions with Iran, though officials from both countries have discussed the matter more broadly.
Obama’s letter to Iran’s powerful religious leader comes against the backdrop of the looming Nov. 24 deadline in nuclear negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, as well as five other world powers. While Obama has previously sent letters to Khamenei, any communication between the two men has been extremely rare.
The Wall Street Journal said it described a shared interest between the U.S. and Iran in fighting Islamic State militants and stressed that any cooperation on that would be largely contingent on Iran agreeing to the nuclear deal. However, while not confirming nor denying the existence of the letter, administration officials said there were still no plans to cooperate or coordinate with Iran against the militants.
Associated Press
