News Article Week 1

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/target-says-70-million-customers-were-hit-by-dec-data-breach-more-than-first-reported/2014/01/10/0ada1026-79fe-11e3-8963-b4b654bcc9b2_story.html

During the holiday season Target had many of their debt and credit card information comprised.  Around 40 million customers had this information taken.  Also the personal information of over 70 million customers has now been placed in the hands of thieves.  Target expected sales are supposed to decline by 2.5 percent because of this mishaps.  They are trying to reconstruct their relationship with current customers by offering one year of free credit monitoring and identity theft protection.  They also have put a list of tips for their customers on their website that can be accessed for free.  Target is currently working with the Secret Service and Department of Justice to try and figure out who is responsible for this situation.  The article continues on to say that they do not know the full effect of this breach yet.  There are many possibilities for what the thieves could use the stolen information for.  It has also been reported that lawsuits are slowly starting to pop up across the nation against Target due to this situation.

                This relates to my field of accounting because it deals with credit and debit cards.  It also deals with money which is the basis for accounting practices.  There are many things that could have possibly prevented this from happening to Target.  Maybe if they were paying more attention to their accounting practices, things like how many items had been bought on target credits during that period they could have caught this earlier.  It also relates to accounting because Target’s sales have decreased due to this breach.  Will decreasing sales, targets bottom line will decrease which could cause a major problem for them.  This whole situation deals with money and that is what the focus of accounting is, making sure you have enough money and then trying to maximize it.  This is exactly the opposite of what target has just done.  They are going to have to look at their finances and figure out a way to deal with all the lawsuits.  They also have to get customers back in the store so they can increase their bottom line and get their profit back up.  That is how this article relates to accounting.