Epsilon Security- Best Buy, Marriot, and Target email lists compromised

Beware of new scams that may possibly emerge from breached security of Marketing giant Epsilon.

Recently I received a email from Best Buy, Target, and Marriott letting me know there email databases were compromised. Epsilon is a 3rd party vendor who manages the email databases for many companies. Epsilon Notified Clients of Entry into the Email System and then followed up with a short press release.

On March 30th, an incident was detected where a subset* of Epsilon clients’ customer data were exposed by an unauthorized entry into Epsilon’s email system. The information that was obtained was limited to email addresses and/or customer names only. A rigorous assessment determined that no other personal identifiable information associated with those names was at risk. A full investigation is currently underway.

There is no doubt that this is a big deal, but how will this really affect customers of the companies that Epsilon provides services for? It depends on the breach and if credit card information was compromised.   Epsilon has assured users that credit card information has not been compromised. The company has an ethical duty to send out the warning, but if it was one company that was compromised would they have gone through the same trouble? The  breach was recorded as being one of the largest breaches ever.

Epsilon followed up with a second release said:

April 4, 2011: The affected clients are approximately 2 percent of total clients and are a subset of clients for which Epsilon provides email services.

The short list of the following companies that were affected are

Amazon.con Inc.’s AbeBooks subsidiary

Ameriprise Financial Inc., asset management and financial planning company

Barclays Bank. Company says breach affects U.S. customers of Barclaycard

Best Buy Co.

Capital One Financial Corp.

Citigroup Inc. Company says information limited to customers of Citi’s North American credit card businesses.

The College Board, not-for-profit organization that runs the SATs.

Ethan Allen Interiors Inc.

Hilton Worldwide, hotel chain whose brands include Hilton, DoubleTree, Hampton Inn and Waldolf Astoria.

HSN Inc., a retailer with roots in the Home Shopping Network.

JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Kroger Co.

Marriott International Inc., hotel chain whose brands include Marriott, Renaissance, Fairfield Inn and Ritz-Carlton

McKinsey & Co., a management consulting firm. Company says breach affected only subscribers of McKinsey Quarterly magazine

New York & Co., apparel chain

TiVo Inc.,

U.S. Bancorp, financial company whose brands include U.S. Bank.

Walgreen Co.

Walt Disney Co.’s travel subsidiary, Disney Destinations.

Epsilon is the industry’s leading marketing services firm, with a broad array of data-driven, multichannel marketing solutions that leverage consumer insight to help brands deepen their relationships with customers. Services include strategic consulting, acquisition and customer database technologies, loyalty management, proprietary data, predictive modeling and a full range of direct and digital agency services, including creative, interactive web design, email deployment, search engine optimization and direct mail production. In addition, Epsilon is the world’s largest permission-based email marketer. Epsilon is an Alliance Data company. For more information, visit www.epsilon.com