PORTLAND

A month-long data breach at certain Staples stores may have affected customers at the chain’s Brunswick and Biddeford locations.

The company has identified the stores at 8 Gurnet Road in Brunswick and 201 Mariner Way in Biddeford on a list of 115 stores across the country affected by a breach of its checkout systems from Aug. 10, 2014, to Sept. 16, 2014.

The Framingham, Massachusetts based company said in December that the problem was caused by malicious software used on some of its point-of-sale systems, meaning hackers may have been able to intercept credit card information as customers made purchases between the affected dates.

For customers who used a credit card at any of the affected stores during that time period, the company announced that it’s offering free sign-ups for identity protection services such as credit monitoring and identity theft insurance, through Experian.

The company estimates that about 1.16 million cards were affected, but it has not broken out those numbers by state or specific stores.

The company’s actions come after a string of major breaches at Target and Home Depot, which affected about 40 million and 56 million debit and credit cards, respectively.

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