(Bloomberg) — Home Depot Inc., which suffered a databreach between April and September, said 53 million e-mailaddresses were taken by hackers during the attack, in addition tothe 56 million payment cards that were previously disclosed.

Home Depot also said that the criminals used a third-partyvendor's user name and password to reach the perimeter of itsnetwork, then gained additional rights to navigate the company'ssystems. Hackers used custom-built software on Home Depot'sself-checkout terminals in the U.S. and Canada to accesscustomer data, according to a statement yesterday.

"Customers should be on guard against phishing scams, which aredesigned to trick customers into providing personal information inresponse to phony e-mails," the Atlanta-based company said.

Home Depot, which first acknowledged the attack in September,has become one of the biggest victims of hackers' war on retailers.The world's largest home-improvement chain has said it expects topay about $62 million this year to recover from the incursion,including additional costs for call-center staffing and legalexpenses. Insurance will cover $27 million of that tab, the companysaid.

The latest information stemmed from weeks of work byinvestigators, who are cooperating with law enforcement andinformation-technology experts, Home Depot said. Thee-mail data that was stolen didn't includepasswords or other sensitive information, the company said.

New Malware

Home Depot began investigating the breach onSept. 2, immediately after banking partners and law enforcementraised alarms that its systems may have been infiltrated. Themalicious software used in the breach hadn't beenseen in previous attacks and was designed to evade detection byanti-virus software, the company has said. The vulnerability hasbeen closed off, and Home Depot has eliminated the malware from itssystems.

A third-party vendor was also the root of TargetCorp.'s breach last year, when hackers stoleabout 40 million payment-card numbers at the height of the holidayseason.

So far, Home Depot has weatheredits breach more smoothly than Target, whichsuffered a decline in sales and was reprimanded by lawmakers. HomeDepot yesterday reiterated its financial targets for 2014, sayingsales will grow about 4.8% and earnings will climb 21% to $4.54 ashare.

The shares fell 0.2% to $97.09 at 10:19 a.m. in New York. Thestock had climbed 18% this year through yesterday, outpacing theStandard & Poor's 500 Index's 9.9% gain.

The company is bolstering the security in all its U.S. stores,including encrypting more data and addingchip-and-PIN technology. Home Depot has almost 2,300 retailstores.