Home Depot confirms payment systems were breached

Home Depot breach bigger than Target at 56 million cards Thu, Sep 18 19:16 PM EDT image By Jim Finkle and Nandita Bose BOSTON/CHICAGO (Reuters) - Home Depot Inc (HD.N) Thursday said some 56 million payment cards were likely compromised in a cyberattack at its stores, suggesting the hacking attack at the home improvement chain was larger than last year's unprecedented breach at Target Corp (TGT.N). Home Depot, in providing the first clues to how much the breach would cost, said that so far it has estimated costs of $62 million. But it indicated that costs could reach much higher. It will take months to determine the full scope of the fraud, which affected Home Depot stores in both the United States and Canada and ran from April to September. Retailer Target incurred costs of $148 million in its second fiscal quarter related to its breach. Target hackers stole at least 40 million payment card numbers and 70 million other pieces of customer data. Home Depot said that criminals used unique, custom-built software that had not been seen in previous attacks and was designed to evade detection in its most complete account of what had happened since it first disclosed the breach on Sept. 8. The company said that the hackers’ method of entry has been closed off, the malware eliminated from its network, and that it had rolled out "enhanced encryption of payment data" to all U.S. stores. "We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience and anxiety this has caused and want to reassure them that they will not be liable for fraudulent charges," Chief Executive Frank Blake said in a statement. Of the estimated cost so far of $62 million, which covers such items as credit monitoring, increased call center staffing, and legal and professional services, Home Depot said it believes that $27 million of the amount will be paid for by insurers. But the company said it has not yet estimated the impact of "probable losses" related to the possible need to reimburse banks for fraud and card replacement, as well as covering costs of lawsuits and government investigations. "Those costs may have a material adverse effect on The Home Depot’s financial results in the fourth quarter and/or future periods," the company said in its statement. Wesley McGrew, an expert of retail breaches who is an assistant research professor at the department of computer science at Mississippi State University, said that Home Depot is going to be expected to bear the costs related to fraud and payment card replacement. Banks typically seek to get retailers to cover those costs if there are any indications of shortcomings in their security. Criminals have frequently used software that evades detection, but retailers are expected to closely monitor their networks using tools that are designed to uncover signs of a crime in progress, McGrew said. "It’s hard to feel sorry for them when there are things they could have done to improve the security of these transactions," McGrew said. Hitesh Sheth, chief executive of Vectra Networks, a cybersecurity firm in San Jose, California, said Home Depot's breach exposes a weakness, noting that the company said hackers used unique, custom-built malware. That "essentially means the technology they are using is only designed to detect malware that has already been used in a previous attack, and that is symptomatic of the retail industry,” Sheth said. “Retailers need to upgrade to technology that is available and detects behavior of malware that is new because these attacks are not going to stop anytime soon.” For its fiscal year ending in February, Home Depot revised its earnings estimate to $4.54 per share from $4.52. In addition to the cost related to the breach, it said the estimate includes a pre-tax gain of about $100 million on the sale of 3.6 million common shares of HD Supply stock. The company left its outlook for sales growth for the year at 4.8 percent. (Reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston and Nandita Bose in Chicago; Additional reporting by Shailaja Sharma in Bangalore; Editing by Leslie Adler and Jilian Mincer) ============================ Mon, Sep 08 17:53 PM EDT image (Reuters) - Home improvement retailer Home Depot Inc confirmed on Monday that its payment security systems have been breached, which could impact customers using payment cards at its stores in the United States and Canada. Home Depot, however, said it has found no evidence that personal identification numbers (PINs) have been compromised, it said in a statement. The breach was first reported by security website KrebsonSecurity on Sept. 3, which had said the problem could extend back to April and affect all of Home Depot's 2,200 stores in the United States. Home Depot said it is focusing its investigation from April this year, after its banking partners and law enforcement agencies first notified them of the breach last week. "We owe it to our customers to alert them that we now have enough evidence to confirm that a breach has indeed occurred," Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Frank Blake said. "It is important to emphasize that no customers will be responsible for fraudulent charges to their accounts." Home Depot had said earlier it will roll out PIN- and chip-enabled cards at all its U.S. stores by the end of the year. (Reporting by Nandita Bose in Chicago; editing by Matthew Lewis)

Real estate wave helps an IPO avoid tech wipeout

No place like homes Real estate wave helps an IPO avoid tech wipeout 20 September 2012 | By Robert Cyran Trulia, which operates a website and mobile application that provide data on U.S. home prices, made its public market debut on Sept. 20. After pricing shares at $17 apiece, they soared to nearly $25 in afternoon trading. A real estate wave helped an initial public offering avoid a tech wipeout. Newly listed shares of Trulia, an online property listing service, popped by over 40 percent in their debut on Thursday. That defies the dire dot-com market evidenced by the likes of Facebook and Groupon. The U.S. housing recovery is a good story but Trulia is also still hitched to the Web. For the first time in years, home prices, new construction and completed residences are slowly increasing across America. The rebound is helping many boats rise. Since the start of the year, Home Depot shares are up 43 percent, those of paint maker Sherwin-Williams have gained 67 percent and builder Lennar have rocketed 87 percent. Trulia benefited, too, by associating itself with the housing market instead of the tech sector. More home sales mean more traffic on its site, more ads from movers to mortgage brokers and more realtors paying to have their picture and phone number pop up next to a new listing. The company’s first-half sales grew by nearly 80 percent from a year ago. But the company’s financials reveal its true pedigree. Trulia is valued at about nine times the revenue it should be able to generate this year based on its January-to-June performance. That’s a tech multiple, not anything found in the bricks-and-mortar world of housing. It also has never turned a profit in seven years of existence, a foundation on which only a web IPO could be built. If Trulia can’t swing into the black soon, investors could move the shares into the shabby tech neighborhood. =========== 10/20/2012 (19:09 pm) - The number of readings: 184 - Issue (2628) Senior officials use their influence to loot the state Real Estate BAGHDAD / Ibrahim Ibrahim A member of the Committee on Parliamentary Integrity Hussein al-Asadi told the "long", for "that senior officials are accused of exploiting and looting property state through control of the provinces whole include vast tracts contain palaces and villas big like theirs inherited down as they please," as he put it. The Asadi Rep. state law "that property and state-owned land to be exploited and dominate them by all political parties on the scene, without exception, there is no difference between the Arab parties Kurdish mother, Muslim and non-Muslim represent this party or that everyone accused of breaking the law." He added Asadi "to file Real Estate Location is one of the thorny issues and large that we inherited after the change in 2003 due to the presence of many institutions, buildings and real estate and land under control by the parties illegally though these files are real estate and property has been manipulated and forging papers by officials in the system New and through the sale of property or a tenant of several people what the cause of confusion and condition faltered after a long period of time has consequently led to difficulty validation of real estate priorities. " He noted that "the classification of these properties include three sections are either be owned entities dissolved and belonging to the Ministry of Finance and specifically Foundation Real Estate State, or be owned by the ousted former regime confiscated according to judicial decisions because استملاكها illegal, and section of a third book due to some land and real estate as a result of Resolution 88, which issued by L. Paul Bremer III. " Asadi went on to say that "a senior official in the state hired a presidential palace in the Green Zone, owned by the former regime consists of three floors on an area of ​​2000 m 2 has five swimming pools at a small apartment in a popular area on the outskirts of Baghdad." For his part, member of the Commission itself for the rule of law Ammar Al-Shibli "What happened on state land acquisition by the officials of the former regime was a circumvention of the law and repeat this overtaking current regime officials." The Shibli that "the acquisition was contrary to the law as if it were a sale and purchase we said they achieved nothing of public benefit," said Shibli "said the executive responsible for granting land to officials in the provinces is conservative in this province or that, with the exception of the capital, which was granted authority to the secretariat of Baghdad just as it extends the authority of the secretariat from the city center and to the outer gates of the capital, including the Green Zone. " He noted that "the law of Bremer had provided for the confiscation of movable and immovable property to the ousted former regime except their inhabited by families so that one ousted regime had a 11 Dara and shops in the Karrada, a first lieutenant in the army," adding that "the book Secretariat the Council of Ministers focused on that housing is a human issue belonging to the families of the former regime officials so that one of the sons of the family of former President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr recovered his home in accordance with the law. " He added, "What happened during the interim government of Iyad Allawi was taking advantage of the law by bypassing some executives in the Governing Council and the Allawi government to applicable regulations and has to refer the issue of acquisition of the property of the former regime to the Integrity Commission is not deciding the subject so far." A member of the Parliamentary Integrity Committee Jaafar al-Moussawi told the "long", "that the government directions to check all the files that belong to state Real Estate since 2003, regardless of the type of property and the different geographical place." Moussawi added, "that the Parliamentary Integrity Committee pursue vigorously all the details of this file, which is one of the fundamental problems through the power granted to large committee to follow up any irregularities in various fields." And "that a lot of speculation prior to the sale prices and rental properties the state was reconsidering them and at all levels in cooperation with the Integrity Commission and noted the existence of violations is to sell a house with an area of ​​600 square meters and is located in the center of Baghdad Sold at 260 million dinars, while the price of real 600 000 000 dinars and this is a simple example and the list goes on. " He explained, "that the Integrity Commission, met Prime Real Estate State to remove the obstacles facing the process of collecting numbers and addresses of all state-owned real estate and the need to apply the law in all its details." In this particular statement issued by the Chairman of the Board of Wasit province, Mahmoud Abdul Ridha Talal exempt managers of real estate registration and director of the State Real Estate of their duties on the back of questioning during a session of the provincial council. "The resolution was voted on the consensus of the members present at the meeting, and that the Council decision of dismissal will be forwarded to the authorities responsible for the appointment of director of real estate registration in the Ministry of Justice to choose the right person for the job." The statement noted that "the director of Real Estate State acknowledged the existence of financial corruption in his institution with the exemption Director of Real Estate Registration due incompetence administratively, especially in relation to its objection to the registration piece of land, despite obtaining approvals fundamentalist Bastmlakha of all relevant ministries in order to create investment projects serve Wasit province ". The MP for the Virtue parliamentary bloc Mohammed Hindawi, there are dozens of files of financial and administrative corruption in the state Department of Real Estate in the holy city of Karbala. Hindawi said, "The results of the preliminary investigation revealed the sale of dozens of state-owned real estate officials and mock Bmzaadat had announced a fake newspaper and then sold cheaply." He added, "There are large properties in the holy city of Karbala has been recorded the names of influential mafias in the various government ministries by selling mostly fake." ========= Real estate app Trulia soars 40% following IPO Thu, Sep 20 12:30 PM EDT Real estate site Trulia‘s stock has popped about 40 percent in early trading on its first day as a public company, with the stock trading about $7 over its $17-per-share IPO price. Trulia filed for a $75 million IPO on Monday, despite consistent losses. The site competes with Zillow in up-to-date real estate listings and helpful tools for prospective renters and buyers. The company has more than 4.5 million homes listed for sale and rent and a database of more than 110 million properties. Its listings include info about nearby schools and crime, but mostly Trulia is helpful for buyers and renters with its ability to easily search, visualize, and track homes and apartments. The map above shows a search I performed today for properties for sale in Brooklyn. Subscriptions make up the majority of Trulia’s revenues, with more than 21,000 current subscribers. The company’s revenues for the first six months of 2012 amount to $29 million versus $16 million for the same period a year ago. Net losses are also growing for Trulia — its net loss in the first six months of the year are $7.6 million versus $6.2 million a year ago. Prior the IPO, San Francisco-based Trulia raised about $33 million in funding from Sarofim Fayez, Accell Partners, Sequoia Capital, and other investors. =========== Pass Go and collect $16M: Zillow acquires real estate marketplace HotPads Mon, Nov 26 22:00 PM EST Zillow is acquiring HotPads for $16 million in cash. Zillow is a real estate marketplace that lists “practically every home in the U.S.” It can be used to find homes for sale, apartment rentals, market records, mortgage rates, statistics, and even advice. Like any enterprising real estate mogul, Zillow has been on a buying spree, snatching up startups to expand and improve its offerings. The HotPads purchase marks Zillow’s sixth acquisition in less than two years. HotPads’ map-based real estate search engine is known for its split screen search interface that lets visitors view multiple listings side-by-side to make comparisons. Of the millions of visitors to HotPads, almost 70% were looking for rentals. This fits into Zillow’s recent launch of Zillow Rentals, which offers a suite of tools for rental professionals. “This acquisition represents a significant step-change for Zillow Rentals, allowing us to dramatically increase the number of leads we send to landlords,” said Spencer Rascoff, CEO of Zillow. “HotPads has a younger, complementary and rental-focused audience. Now Zillow will become even more relevant to consumers at the beginning of their real estate life cycle.” This is Zillow’s first acquisition of a primarily consumer-facing company. Earlier acquisitions include Mortech, Inc; Buyfolio; RentJuice, Diverse Solutions, and Postlets. There are mixed sentiments about Zillow’s future within the technology community. While the company had a strong third quarter with $27.8 million in revenue and saw 36 million unique visitors in October, a recent report from research firm Citron undermined investor, share-holder, and consumer confidence. HotPads will not only supplement Zillow’s rental offering but will also help build out its mobile presence. Zillow recently launched the Rentals for iPhone app and saw record mobile usage in Quarter 3. HotPads’ five mobile applications will “complement Zillow’s growing rental marketplace.” HotPads will also serve to bolster Zillow in its competition with Trulia, another real estate listing company. HotPads has 19 employees and is based in San Francisco, where it will remain even though Zillow is based in Seattle. Read the press release. Filed under: Deals, Search ============ Filed under: deals =============