How The 2013 Target Data Breach Changed The Security Landscape

The massive data breach experienced by retail giant Target was a wakeup call for many Americans, and retired U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal believes that three years later, the country still has a lot to learn from the incident.

"Even Americans who don’t work in cybersecurity remember [the breach] because so many Americans were touched in some way psychologically by what happened to target," McChrystal said.

From November 23 to December 15, 2013, some 40 to 70 million customers had their personal information compromised in a massive data breach of Target. The incident had ripple effects on companies across the country.

"Organizations realized that if they fail to deal with this new challenge with efficiency and adaptability – and those are two almost at-odds ideas in traditional management – they were going to have big problems," McChrystal said.

McChrystal served as Commander of JSOC and Director, Joint Staff in the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan.