Under immense scrutiny following a massive security breach in January that affected 70 million people, Target announced some security changes on Tuesday.

It’s only been a month since Target’s previous CIO resigned, but the company appears to be moving in a straight forward direction when it comes to security. The company announced that it had hired Bob DeRodes, who will be their new technology leader effective May 5th. DeRodes will lead Target’s information technology transformation as executive vice president and chief information officer.

"Establishing a clear path forward for Target following the data breach has been my top priority. I believe Target has a tremendous opportunity to take the lessons learned from this incident and enhance our overall approach to data security and information technology. Bob’s history of leading transformational change positions him well to lead our continued breach responses and guide our long-term digital strategy," said Gregg Steinhafel, Target chairman, president and chief executive officer.

Target also announced several other steps taken to enhance security measures. They said, “Since the initial confirmation of the data breach, Target has shared that there has been an active investigation. During that time, the company has taken significant actions to further strengthen security across the network." The changes listed include; enhancing monitoring and logging, installation of application whitelisting point-of-sale systems, implementation of enhanced segmentation, reviewing and limiting vendor access, and enhanced security accounts.

Also, ahead of schedule before the October 2015 deadline set by the major credit card companies, Target announced plans for, "A significant new initiative as part of the company’s accelerated transition to chip-and-PIN-enabled REDcards. Beginning in early 2015, the entire REDcard portfolio, including all Target-branded credit and debit cards, will be enabled with MasterCard’s chip-and-PIN solution. Existing co-branded cards will be reissued as MasterCard co-branded chip-and-PIN cards. Ultimately, through this initiative, all of Target’s REDcard products will be chip-and-PIN secured."

"I look forward to helping shape information technology and data security at Target in the days and months ahead. It is clear to me that Target is an organization that is committed to doing whatever it takes to do right by their guests," said DeRodes.

While Target is busy working hard on its security enhancements, we hope other retailers are moving in the same direction to protect consumers. We’ve seen way too many reports of data breaches in the past several months affecting millions of people, and it shows just how vulnerable the use of cards are, as well as security systems.