Grocer Hacked: 4.2 Million Records Exposed

Posted March 18, 2008

Hackers were able to penetrate systems at grocer Hannaford Brothers and made off with 4.2 million credit and debit card numbers. The Associated Press reports there are already 1,800 cases of fraud linked to the breach.

The grocer does not associate names and addresses with the credit card data making it impossible to proactively contact consumers who may be impacted, according to this Washington Post story. This scenario is a great example of why we all need to proactively manage our own identities from fraud. If you haven’t already, consider a consumer identity theft protection service from companies like IdentityGuard, TrustedID and xAR.