“I’m usually retty good at keeping my bank account safe, but the recent Target scandal has me a little on edge,” said junior Megan Ellison.  “I work as a cashier for Target and we weren’t given very much information on it other than that it happened and that they fixed the problem.”

 Target Corp. was hit by an extensive theft of its customers’ credit-card and debit-card data over the busy Black Friday weekend in what appeared to be a brazen breach of a major retailer’s information security.  The theft was national in proportions and may have involved tampering with the machines customers use to swipe their cards when making purchases.

The Secret Service is investigating the breach, a spokesman said to the Wall Street Journal, but refused to give details of the incident while the investigation is ongoing.  Secret Service often investigates significant hacks of credit-card data, as part of its mission is to safeguard the country’s financial infrastructure and payment systems.

It is believed that the breach affected roughly 40,000 card devices at store registers, which could mean that millions of cardholders could be vulnerable.  The company later disclosed that thieves were believed to have stolen data from up to 1.5 million card accounts.

The thieves gained access to data that is stored on the magnetic stripe on the back of the credit and debit cards.  The stripe contains data that is valuable for making counterfeit cards, such as account numbers and expiration dates, but it wasn’t immediately known which data was vulnerable.

The description of the breach on the Target website is as follows: “In mid-December, we learned criminals forced their way into our system, gaining access to guest credit and debit card information. The investigation has recently determined that certain guest information was taken. That included names, mailing addresses, email addresses or phone numbers. We have partnered with a leading third-party forensics firm who is thoroughly investigating the breach.”

Target also stated on their website that they had “closed the access point” that the criminals had been using to access information.  However, the investigation remains open as Target seeks to learn more about the information stolen and the criminals who stole it.