MINNEAPOLIS – Black Friday has new meaning for Target, as the discount chain revealed a massive breach of credit card data that began around that date, USA Today reports. Close to 40 million accounts have been compromised by the attack

“Target is working closely with law enforcement and financial institutions, and has identified and resolved the issue,” said CEO Greg Steinhafel of the breach that happened between November 27 and December 15. The incident involves personal credit card information from shoppers at almost every 1,800 Target stores in the United States. The U.S. Secret Service is investigating the data theft.

“Target has invested as much as anyone in protecting the card environment, in fact Target is a recognized leader in retail technology. For them to be breached on this magnitude speaks to the level of dysfunction in the current card payments system,” Paige Anderson, NACS director of government relations, told NACS Daily.

“Target is in a group of retailers that have invested billions over the past decade plug security holes in the forty year old card payments system; and apparently complying with PCI mandates doesn’t cut it. Almost $4 trillion in payments were made on this system in 2012 — 24% of the US GDP — a ready pool of money just there for the taking by those who would do us harm,” Anderson continued. “If this is not a national security wakeup call for our country, I fear for what is.”

“We are foolishly trying to create pristine data environments in a network with millions of endpoints,” Gray Taylor, executive director of PCATS, the industry’s standards and technology organization, said to NACS Daily. “We need to rethink how sensitive data is passed in our digital society — not just payments but all private data — and assume that the network is breached in our thinking. Only then can we regain that one step advantage over the criminals and foreign enemies. Unfortunately, I believe that business interests, legacy systems and lack of coordination of private and public efforts is hindering this process.”