Home Depot Breach Backlash

Now that Home Depot has confirmed its massive data breach, the blame and investigation aftermath starts. Five U.S. states and two U.S. senators separately jumped in to insist that something be done to deal with the cyberattack that “may have gotten away with more than 40 million payment cards, which would exceed the number taken in last year’s unprecedented attack on Target,” Reuters reported.

U.S. senators Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate, Reuters said. “If Home Depot failed to adequately protect customer information, it denied customers the protection that they rightly expect when a business collects such information,” the senators said in a statement. “Such conduct is potentially unfair and deceptive, and therefore could violate the FTC Act.”

Meanwhile, five states—California, Connecticut, Illinois, New York and Iowa—have assigned their Attorneys Generals to investigate the attack.