A Rundown of This Week's Biggest Data Breaches

We are about to enter a very dangerous time of the year for cybercrime, as we approach the busy holiday shopping season and then tax season. Over the next few months, hackers will be working overtime looking for network vulnerabilities that they can exploit for financial gain.

This week, we got a small sample of what’s likely to come when the following companies announced data breaches:

Forever 21: On Tuesday, Forever 21 stated that an individual gained unauthorized access to customer payment card data from some of its retail locations. The company is now investigating transactions that were made at stores between March and October of 2017. Sources indicate that some points of sale devices were impacted, and that they were not using encryption at the time.

Jewson: There were also two data breaches out of the UK this week. First, builders’ merchant Jewson informed its customers that financial information may have been exposed in a data breach. It is believed that the breach took place on August 23, but wasn’t discovered until November 3.

"We confirm that the Jewson Direct website (formerly the Jewson Tools website) has been the target of a security breach,” the company stated. “We have notified 1,659 customers whose data may have been compromised and are offering free credit monitoring to all of those affected to help detect any potential misuse of data in the future.”

At this point it is not known if the data was encrypted.

Cash Converters: In another incident out of the UK, pawnbroker Cash Converters claimed that hackers gained unauthorized access to customer data on the company’s website. The stolen data may have included passwords, personal details and purchase histories. An investigation is currently taking place. Some samples of the data breach have been posted on social media.