What’s really driving cyberattacks against retailers

Security researchers say they've uncovered links to commentary that accuses the United States of fomenting unrest around the world in the code of the malware believed to have been used in a string of data breaches at US retail stores over the past year, including a potentially massive breach at Home Depot.

One of the linked images that cybersecurity firm Trend Micro discovered among the latest versions of the BlackPOS malware shows a matchbox with the American flag on it next to Molotov cocktails emblazoned with the flags of Syria, Libya, Egypt and Ukraine. Krebs on Security's Brian Krebs, who first broke the Home Depot breach story, has reported that BlackPOS infected at least some of the registers involved in the Home Depot hack. But experts say those links don't necessarily mean that ideology was the driving force behind the hacks. Instead, the key motivator was likely cold, hard cash.