Introduction Page

1. The days of both carefree and thoughtful shopping have come to a halt this past September of 2014. The early part of this month saw yet another breach in retail security in the United States, this time with Home Depot. The hacking incident takes place almost a year after Target stores were met with infiltration of their databases prior to Thanksgiving and Black Friday of November 2013.
   
   

2. Recent investigations into both the Home Depot and Target incidents have yielded evidence of the malware stemming from hackers in foreign countries. Target and Home Depot are taking measures to compensate their customers, many of whom were affected by the external pilfering of their credit card information, and restructure their security management in order to prevent intrusions from affecting their performance, but it may not be enough to extol the fear and possibility of a similar incident from occurring in the future. That is why it is important to discuss the legal actions that the United States government is taking to aide retailers, the ethical standpoints from which hacking and education of computer programming is viewed, the social effects of this security concern, and security tactics that are being implemented to combat these malicious external codes.

   ---