Home Depot probing possible hacking; customer data may be at risk

Home Depot is investigating a potential hacking that may have exposed customer data.

The home improvement chain said Tuesday it is looking into “unusual activity” and working with law enforcement and banking partners.

“We are aggressively gathering facts at this point while working to protect customers,” Home Depot spokeswoman Paula Drake said in a statement. “If we confirm that a breach has occurred, we will make sure customers are notified immediately.”

Security journalist Brian Krebs, who broke the story of the massive data breach at Target Corp. last year, first reported that Home Depot may be the source of a “massive” trove of debit and credit cards that went on sale Tuesday morning in the “cybercrime underground.”

“There are signs that the perpetrators of this apparent breach may be the same group of Russian and Ukrainian hackers responsible for the data breaches at Target, Sally Beauty and P.F. Chang’s, among others,” Krebs wrote on his website.

Krebs said multiple banks said they have seen evidence that the new batch of stolen payment info came from Atlanta-based Home Depot.

Several retailers have recently reported hacking attacks. The most prominent was Target, which is still scrambling to deal with fallout from its disclosure in December that hackers stole credit and debit card information from tens of millions of customers.

Follow Shan Li on Twitter @ShanLi