Home Depot says electronic outage slowed card purchases

Home Depot reported an internal outage with its system for processing payment cards on Saturday, slowing purchases at stores across the U.S.

A spokesman for the home improvement chain said the issue appears resolved and that customers' information was not at risk "at any time." Stores were still able to accept card payments during the outage, he added, though some customers paid with cash.

In 2014, the Atlanta-based retailer reported a massive, months-long breach that affected 56 million debit and credit cards. The company said that hackers had accessed the company's network using a third-party vendor's username and password.

Data breaches at Home Depot, Target and other retailers have pushed banks and card companies to increase security by speeding the adoption of microchips in credit and debit cards.

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