Home Depot’s lengthy security breach exposed 56 million credit cards

Home Depot on Thursday provided an update [PDF] to its investigation of an embarrassing security breach, revealing that as many as 56 million unique credit card numbers are at risk from the incident.

The company also confirmed that malware used for the hack has been removed from its systems. So that’s a relief, I guess. Home Depot suspects that its US and Canadian stores were exposed from April to September of this year.

By comparison, Target’s major security mishap from last year exposed 40 million cards.

If you’re worried that your card is at risk, Home Depot is offering free identity protection services and credit monitoring to affected customers.

➤ The Home Depot Completes Malware Elimination and Enhanced Encryption of Payment Data in All U.S. Stores [PDF]

Thumbnail image credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images