Neiman Marcus says about 1.1 million cards affected by breach

NEW YORK, United States - Neiman Marcus said about 1.1 million customer payment cards may have been exposed during a data breach at the privately owned luxury department store chain from July 16 to Oct. 30 last year.

So far, about 2,400 payment cards used at Neiman Marcus' various chains have been used fraudulently, CEO Karen Katz wrote in a statement on the company's website, citing notification from credit card networks Visa Inc, MasterCard Inc and Discover Financial Services.

Though the size of the breach is far smaller than what Target Corp disclosed, the damage to the retail industry could still be significant as Neiman has a far wealthier clientele, many of whom have high limits on their credit cards.

Katz said social security numbers and birth dates were not compromised as part of the breach. The company's own label credit cards have not seen any fraudulent activity, Katz added.

Reuters has previously reported at least six other cyber attacks at U.S. merchants whose credit card processing systems are infected with the same type of malicious software used to steal data from Target.

Target's financial chief will testify before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Feb. 4 on the massive data breach at its stores during the holiday season.