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Home Depot reveals extent of massive data breach

New York - Hackers stole 53 million e-mail addresses in addition to customers' card data, Home Depot said on Thursday.

The largest home improvement chain in the US had disclosed the massive, months-long breach of 56 million debit and credit cards in September.

Home Depot's breach surpassed Target's pre-Christmas 2013 data theft, which compromised 40 million credit and debit cards and hurt sales and profits.

Since late in 2013, Michaels, SuperValu and Neiman Marcus have been among a string of retailers that have also reported breaches, though they were smaller.

While shoppers appear to have grown numb to the hacks, the breaches have forcing changes in retailing.

Target's breach pushed banks, retailers and card companies to increase security by speeding the adoption of microchips in US credit and debit cards, which supporters say are more secure.

Malware

Home Depot reiterated on Thursday that it will be activating chip-enabled checkout terminals at all of its US stores by the end of the year.

The file containing the e-mail addresses did not contain passwords or other sensitive personal information, according to Home Depot.

However, it said that customers should be on guard against phishing scams. Phishing attacks are sent through texts or e-mails and try to trap you into disclosing personal information.

The company is notifying affected customers in the US and Canada.

Home Depot also explained how the hackers got into its system. It said that the hackers initially accessed its network in April with a third-party vendor's username and password.

Home Depot said hackers stole information through malware installed on self-checkout systems in the US and Canada. That's similar to what happened at Target where thieves hacked into the password of a third-party supplier.

Home Depot said that its investigation with law enforcement and efforts to further enhance its security measures are ongoing.

"It's scary. The numbers are too big to comprehend," said John Kindervag, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research. "But what are you going to do about it?"

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