A pair of Democratic senators are calling on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate the massive data breach that struck Home Depot.
Hackers using malware were able to gain access to the home improvement chain's payment systems and steal customers' credit card numbers. The Associated Press reports that the breach
could be one of the largest in history.
On Tuesday, Sens. Richard Blumenthal , D-Conn., and Ed Markey, D-Mass, requested that the FTC investigate how the breach occurred and whether or not Home Depot's security systems are capable enough to defend against future attacks,
The Hill reports.
"Given the unprecedented scope and extended duration of Home Depot's data breach, it appears that Home Depot may have failed to employ reasonable and appropriate security measures to protect sensitive personal information," the senators wrote in a letter to FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez, according to The Hill. "If Home Depot failed to adequately protect customer information, it denied customers the protection that they rightly expect when a business collects such information."
Markey and Blumenthal introduced legislation earlier this year that would force companies to tell their customers if personal information might have been stolen. Under the Personal Data Protection and Breach Accountability Act, companies would also have to put together plans that would prevent hackers from gaining access to sensitive information in the future.
Home Depot has not yet concluded the size of the data breach, but experts suggest it could be on par with — or even larger than — the hack of Target's servers last year that resulted in 40 million stolen debit and credit cards.
"From what I'm hearing, people think this will be as big as Target or bigger," Forrester Research analyst John Kindervag told the Associated Press.
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