BREACH OF PERSONAL INFORMATION 3
(Doward & Gibbs, 2017). Despite a video evidence, both companies denied using Facebook data
as a part of the services to Trump’s campaign and that personality targeting advertising approach
was not used for their clients (Dehaye, 2017). CA went further accusing Channel 4 News of
mischaracterization as well as entrapment arguing that the reports were scripted and edited with
the aim of misrepresenting the nature of the conversation as well as the company's business
conduct. However, the suspending of the company's CEO while the investigation was underway
was a proof of the company's involvement in the practice.
Target Store’s Data Breach
Taking place in December 2013, the personal information breach at Target Stores
involved the compromising of contact and debit/debit card information of more than 110 million
people (Riley, Elgin, Lawrence & Matlack, 2014). Although the breach was not discovered until
weeks later, Target Store announced that hackers managed to gain access to its customer’s
private information through a third-party Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning vender to the
company’s point-of-sales payment card readers (Hovav & Gray, 2014). As a result, the hackers
managed to collect up to 40 million debit and credit card numbers. Upon investigation, the
company reported that up 70 million personal identifiable information of its customers had been
compromised. Personal information that had been collected included names, email addresses,
phone numbers and addresses.
Hacking of data at target is among the very few recent breaches that had been effectively
managed. Because of their failure to protect the personal information of its client, the company’s
CEO and CIO assumed responsibility of the breach and resigned (Riley, Elgin, Lawrence &
Matlack, 2014). Also, in the recent past, the company has been credited for making significant
improvement on personal information management systems. Two years after the breach, the
