Yesterday, Home Depot confirmed that its payment systems have been breached, apparently by a new variant of the same malware responsible for the headline-grabbing Target data breach last December. At risk appears to be the payment information from its nearly 2,200 US and Canadian brick and mortar stores. Home Depot believes, however, that its stores in Mexico and online transaction data from HomeDepot.com were spared from the attack. It also does not believe that debit card PINs were impacted.

The home improvement retailer reports that it is investigating transactions dating back to April 2014. It is also offering free identity protection services for 12 months to any customers who may have been affected by the breach.
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Last week, Fair Isaac Corp, the company behind the industry-dominant FICO scoring model, announced that it would be making some key changes to its scoring system in the latest iteration of its model, dubbed FICO Score 9. The revisions, set to take effect this fall, will alter the formulas used to generate the credit scores that are used in 90% of US consumer lending decisions. Among the new changes: 1) the new FICO scores will give less weight to unpaid medical bills and 2) the new scores will no longer penalize consumers who have had their bills settled with a collection agency.
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