J.Crew notified a group of customers that an unauthorized third-party accessed their accounts nearly a year ago using their login credentials and obtained personal information, including the last four digits of payment card numbers, expiration dates, card types and billing addresses as well as order numbers, shipping confirmation numbers and shipment status.
In a filing with the California Attorney General’s Office,
J.Crew said it had disabled affected accounts and directed customers to contact
the J. Crew Customer Care Center to reset their passwords. “We do not have
reason to believe that the unauthorized party gained access to any additional
information within your account,” the company said in the notification.
“For users, there is nothing good about
the credential stuffing attack at J. Crew, but there are some useful lessons to
be learned,” said Jonathan Knudsen, senior security strategist at Synopsis,
calling for users to practice good cyber hygiene, including changing the password
on other sites.
Because J.Crew didn’t reveal the attack
publicly until almost a year after it occurred, Knudsen said hackers may have
already used the information in other attacks.
“Businesses
face an even higher risk when employee data appears as part of a credential
dump or account sale, particularly if employees have used corporate addresses
to sign up for personal services,” Emily Wilson, vice
president of research at Terbium Labs, maintained. “Corporate contact details stand out starkly against
consumer details in a big credential leak, putting that organization at an
increased risk for phishing or direct account takeover, especially if employees
are re-using passwords between corporate and professional accounts.”
She explained that “a set of corporate
credentials in a third-party breach is an open invitation to walk straight into
an employee account – and a corporate network by extension.” Businesses, she
said, “need to know if and when their information appears online, regardless of
the original source of the leak. Even if it’s not your breach, it’s still
definitely going to be your problem.”
