Security breach widens at retailers, others (AP)

NEW YORK – Best Buy Co., TiVo Inc. and Walgreen Co. are the latest in a seemingly endless list of companies to warn of weekend hackers access to customer files, including e-mail addresses obtained.

The companies all use the same marketing and communications vendor, Epsilon. It is a leading marketing firm that more than 40 billion emails every year and has more than 2,500 customers, including seven of the Fortune 10th Epsilon, headquartered in Dallas, issued a brief statement on Friday saying "a full investigation was underway" after the discovery of the violation of a number of customers customer data. The company said that the data obtained are limited to names and email addresses, and that no other personally identifiable information about the names were in danger. "

Epsilon spokeswoman Jessica Simon refused further comment late Sunday.

The company said Epsilon informed them of the crimes and told them that the compromised files do not contain personally identifiable information stored by the marketer. However, hackers are using these e-mails to lure customers with more personal information such as Social Security Number.

Best Buy, the nation's largest consumer electronics chain tweeted a link to a statement Sunday saying it was doing its own investigation of the violation. It also reminded customers of e-mails requesting confidential information to ignore. And the Delaware-based Barclays Bank, which issues Visa credit cards in the name of LL Bean, sent emails to its customers warning of any crime, but assured them that their credit card number is safe. But, he warned the subject of spam in search of personal information could.

TiVo and Walgreens issued similar warnings Saturday.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. and supermarket operator Kroger Co., which also use Epsilon to send e-mail, said Friday that they had been affected by the breach. JPMorgan said the cases do not require any financial details of a client. Kroger said that even a database of names and addresses of customers e-mail has been violated, did not have information related to consumers 1-2-3 MasterCard Rewards account involved.