Poor Security at Home Depot (NYSE:HD) led to the Cyber-attack!

Being the biggest security breach of all times, Home Depot (NYSE:HD) has compromised the credit card data of numerous shoppers and the reason? A 2007 old version of Symantec anti-virus! It is mind boggling that a company who earns millions of dollars annual would go seven years without spending on its anti-virus. So much irresponsibility coming from a corporation only means that all they care about is earning profits, without having to spend a penny to secure the customer in any way.

People who quit Home Depot (NYSE:HD)s IT department are now surfacing after the attack to reveal what really went on at the company. Having warned the management for years that the retail systems were prone to cyberattacks because of the infrequent scans that were conducted, the management responded by scanning a couple of stores out of the hundreds all across the country. This was nothing substantial in the eyes of the IT managers who quit the company showing their level of dissatisfaction towards the managements’ attitude.

Two years ago, Ricky Joe Michell was hired as the senior security IT architect after he had totally destroyed the network of EnerVest Operating for a whole month. This was to teach the company a lesson for firing him! A year ago his comments about his act were made public but Home Depot (NYSE:HD) didn’t bat an eyelash and he was still responsible for the security architecture. Giving Home Depot (NYSE:HD) the benefit of the doubt one could say they didn’t want a similar scandal on their hands and let Ricky continue.

Finally, when he pled guilty in January 2014 and Home Depot (NYSE:HD) had legal evidence that Ricky would be vindictive when vengeful did they finally let him go. The breach which happened in April was reported to have happened due to the BlackPOS malware and Home Depot (NYSE:HD) officials claimed that it would have been difficult to detect with its security scans. Yes ofcourse, if you conduct the security scans so irregularly and no third party audit is conducted then yes, you could not have seen the malware in your network with those inadequate scans.

Even the IT security team was not allowed to check all the systems handling the customer data, reported its former IT department employees. Seeing such a lack of network security, employees knew calamity could hit any moment and they warned their friends not to use credit cards when shopping at the Home Depot (NYSE:HD) and go back to the primitive method of using cash. Sadly they could not warn the estimated 56 million credit card holders who used their cards at the retailer and are now regretting it.

Home Depot (NYSE:HD)s spokesperson Stephen Holmes said that the company remains ‘robust security systems’ at their outlets. I would really like them to describe in great detail how they define a robust security system at Home Depot (NYSE:HD) because if a robust security system is not secure then what is? However, the former employees have already proved Stephen wrong with their comments.