Neiman Marcus Group Inc said that its credit card processor informed it in the middle of December that some of its customer cards may have been used to make unauthorized purchases, Bloomberg reported. The retailer is the second to be targeted by hackers after Target Corp, the report said.

In an emailed statement to Bloomberg, the company's Vice President of Corporate Communications Ginger Reeder said, "We informed federal law enforcement agencies and are working actively with the U.S. Secret Service, the payment brands, our credit card processor, a leading investigations, intelligence and risk management firm, and a leading forensics firm to investigate the situation."

Reeder did not identify the card processor, the investigating company and the forensics firm. She said that the forensics company found out on January 1 that the retailer became the subject of a cyber attack which compromised some of its cards. She added that the company has taken the necessary action to improve their information security, the report said.

On December 19, Target said data from 40 million credit and debit cards were stolen from the cyber breach. However, the retailer said yesterday that the hackers were able to steal the names, home addresses and email addresses of up to 70 million people. In an interview, Target Spokeswoman Molly Snyder said that an overlap is possible for both figures but the extent is not clear, the report said.

The breach of both Target Corp and Neiman Marcus occurred in the holiday shopping season which retailers considered as the most important time of the year. It also happened at a time when a lot of shoppers were curbing their spending, the report said.

Ares Management LLC and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board purchased luxury retailer Neiman Marcus from TPG Capital and Warburg Pincus last year, Bloomberg reported.