Target Names New Chief Info Officer Following Data Breach -- 2nd Update

By Lauren Pollock 

Target Corp. named a veteran U.S. government adviser to lead its technology team following a massive data breach last year that enabled one of the largest credit-card thefts in corporate history.

Bob DeRodes, who was formerly a senior information technology adviser for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Secretary of Defense, and the Justice Department, will become Target's chief information officer, effective May 5.

Target also said it would switch its credit-card vendor to MasterCard Inc. from longtime partner Visa Inc. as part of its migration next year to the more secure cards that contain computer chips. Target will use MasterCard's so-called chip and pin technology on both its store branded debit and credit cards, the latter which had carried the Visa logo.

Target's data breach, in which 40 million credit- and debit-card numbers were stolen in the weeks before the year-end holidays, is one of several retailer data thefts that have come to light in recent months.

The company disclosed in January that hackers had stolen such personal information as addresses and telephone numbers of up to 70 million customers. Target later said it found that at least 12 million shoppers had both their credit-card and some personal information stolen and the overlap is likely greater.

Former Chief Information Officer Beth Jacobs resigned in early March and was the first high-profile executive to depart after the breach.

Mr. DeRodes' responsibilities will include oversight of the Target technology team and operations, along with the ongoing data security enhancement efforts and the development of Target's long-term information technology and digital roadmap.

The company is continuing its search for a chief information security officer, which would be a new position, and a chief compliance officer.

"Establishing a clear path forward for Target following the data breach has been my top priority," Chief Executive Gregg Steinhafel said in a prepared statement. "I believe Target has a tremendous opportunity to take the lessons learned from this incident and enhance our overall approach to data security and information technology."

Target said last month that it was re-examining why its data-security team missed signs that hackers were inside its system and has plugged some critical security gaps.

Target has said the hackers appeared to have first entered its system on Nov. 12, 2013, more than a month before the discount retail chain's investigators concluded that a breach had occurred.

Among the other companies that have disclosed data breaches in recent months are retailers Michaels Stores Inc. and Neiman Marcus Group. Meanwhile, AOL Inc. on Monday said it is investigating a security incident involving unauthorized access to a significant number of user accounts, and Microsoft Corp. said Sunday that it had discovered a flaw in versions 6 through 11 of its Internet Explorer Web browser, as well as "limited targeted attacks" to exploit the flaw.

Write to Lauren Pollock at [e-mail]

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