Credit, debit cards used at beauty retailer at risk

If you’ve shopped with Sally Beauty Supply recently you may want to verify your credit and debit cards haven’t been compromised.

Sally Beauty Supply, which operates a local store in Rochester, appears to have become the latest retailer to be the victim of a data breach.  According to Brian Krebbs, an industry expert who blogs on credit cards fraud and identity theft at http://krebsonsecurity.com, as many as 280,000 credit and debit cards that may be linked to Sally Beauty Supply’s store payment systems have been detected for sale on the Internet. The retail giant first noticed suspicious activity around Feb. 24.

Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc. which reported $3.6 billion in revenue last year, issued a statement on Thursday saying that it had detected an attempted intrusion by hackers at the end of February. The Secret Service said it is not involved in an investigation of Sally Beauty Supply at this time. A statement from the corporation concludes by saying “...we have no reason to believe there has been any loss of credit card or consumer data. We will continue to investigate and actively monitor this situation...”

Local consumers who shopped at a Sally’s Beauty Supply store between the last week in February and March 2 should monitor their credit card accounts carefully and cancel any debit cards used at a Sally Beauty Supply store between Feb. 24 and March 2.

Editor's note: For a recent investigative piece by The Lebanon Voice about identity theft and data breach, go to http://www.thelebanonvoice.com/chasing-bad-plastic-tests-the-mettle-of-police-feds-cms-1482.