Potential Home Depot Data Breach Leaves Chattanooga Customers Concerned

CHATTANOOGA,TN, (WDEF)-First it was Target customers having to be reissued  new credit cards after a major security breach back in January and now Home Depot is warning customers not to panic as they investigative a potential leak.

Jim Winsett, BBB CEO Chattanooga,"The most important thing is to be diligent, case and point with Home Depot today, if you have been shopping there of recent you need to look at your credit card statements"

Jim Winsett with the Chattanooga BBB says these hackers are using your credit card information to get access to even more personal data.

"All of a sudden the scammer has the full credit card number in hand they have a name where they can go online and fraudulently use the card its another step to identity theft"

Home Depot has told major media outlets they think the breach  may have originated in Eastern Europe.

At CoLab cyber security specialists and encryption technicians explain why these scams happen and what can be done to stop them in the future

Michael Graham, CodeRocket LLC and Cyber Security Consultant,"The money of course that’s the reason why, purely money, some do it for notoriety to say I performed this"

Cyber Security Consultant Michael Graham says major changes are happening in banking security right now to reduce the number of data leaks.

"Change all of our credit cards, we are all to have little chips in them and all the banks to have to change it over, so the benefit of that will be that people can’t put little cameras while you are shopping at the store and copy all your credit card details, they can’t just scan the magnetic stripe on it"

Chattanooga Home Depot Users have been advised to contact the BBB, local banks and be on the lookout for any strange transactions from their accounts.