The regional Better Business Bureau is encouraging Target shoppers to be proactive and monitor their credit or debit card account for any suspicious activity.
Target confirmed on Thursday that it's investigating a security breach involving stolen credit card and debit card information for 40 million of its customers.
Peggy Pender, of the Better Business Bureau, says data breaches are becoming increasingly more common, and consumers should be cautious.
"Anyone, whether you shopped at Target or not, should really pay attention to any solicitations that they may have, offers that they may have, in terms of protecting their information or help to monitor their account, to verify that this is actually coming from Target."
Pender also says people should be checking their financial statements regularly.
"At least weekly. So that you can catch anything suspicious, and the faster that you identify these types of fraudulent actions the better suited you are to prevent further damage."
Pender says consumers can sign up with credit agencies to have a fraud alert placed on their account. She says if a consumer has not heard from Target they should be proactive and call the retailer. That's because they may offer monitor services at no charge, a service consumers should take advantage of.
Target says the criminals gained access to consumers’ personal information from the day before Thanksgiving through to December 15th.