Home Depot says hackers stole 53 million customer email addresses

Home Depot Inc, the world’s largest home improvement chain, said Thursday that hackers stole about 53 million email addresses in addition to customer data for 56 million payment cards previously disclosed by the retailer. The company, which confirmed the breach in September, said the files that contained the email addresses did not include passwords, payment card information or other sensitive personal information. Criminals used a third-party vendor’s user name and password to enter the perimeter of its network, it said in a statement on Thursday. Home Depot, which had estimated that the theft would cost about $62 million, was one of a string of U.S. retailers attacked by hackers over the past year. Since September, the company has implemented enhanced encryption of payment data in all U.S. stores and said the rollout to its Canadian stores will be completed by early 2015.