Breach has not been confirmed, investigation is ongoing

Jul 22, 2014 08:37 GMT  ·  By

Multiple financial institutions have reported that details of credit and debit cards used at the Goodwill stores in the United States have been used fraudulently across the country.

The investigation of the incident is carried out by Goodwill Industries International Inc. and the US Secret Service.

According to security investigative reporter Brian Krebs, the company said that it learned of a possible breach at its stores on Friday, July 18. His sources in the financial industry revealed that the cards used fraudulently have all been processed at one time or another since the middle of 2013, at the Goodwill stores.

In a statement for the reporter, the company did not confirm a breach at its selling locations, as the investigation is ongoing and more information needs to be gathered.

“Goodwill Industries International is working with industry contacts and the federal authorities on the investigation. We will remain appraised of the situation and will work proactively with any individual local Goodwill involved taking appropriate actions if a data compromise is uncovered,” the company wrote in an email.

The details about the compromised set of cards are scarce at the moment, and there is no info on the number of affected customers, but it appears that the compromised cards were used at the stores in the US.

Goodwill Industries has about 165 independent agencies, spread across multiple countries, United States, Canada, Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico, Panama and Uruguay being among them.

However, most of the stores are concentrated in the United States, in about 21 states: Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

Founded in 1902, in Boston by Reverend Edgar J. Helms, Goodwill is a non-profit organization that funds job training, employment placement services and community-based programs for selling donated goods (clothes and household items). It has now become a $4 / €2,958 billion non-profit organization.

Based on data from 2013, Goodwill offered employment services and training programs to about 9.8 million people, and 261,875 individuals found a job based on such programs. The company earned $5.17 / €3,823 billion in revenue and 83% was spent on the aforementioned initiatives.

About the current incident, the organization said in a message to Krebs that “Goodwills across the country take the data of consumers seriously and their community well-being is our number one concern.

“Goodwill Industries International is working with industry contacts and the federal authorities on the investigation. We will remain appraised of the situation and will work proactively with any individual local Goodwill involved taking appropriate actions if a data compromise is uncovered.”