Staples is now confirming that up to 1.2 million customers who shopped at Staples across the nation could be affected by a data breach.

Staples, which operates 1,400 stores in the U.S. says that malware was used to compromise customers' credit card accounts. The company has been investigating a possible breach since October.

115 stores are affected, according to Staples.

Staples is just one of several giant retailers to be affected by similar data breaches. Target, Home Depot, Sears, Kmart and Nieman Marcus have all been attacked in the past couple of years.

The majority of the breach affected cardholder's names, account numbers, expiration dates and verification codes on customer credit cards. This occurred at 113 stores.

At two other stores, access to the purchase history of cardholders was compromised.

The data that was compromised occurred between the dates of July 20 to Sept. 16.

With the data obtained from the data breach, hackers are able to make purchases online with the stolen credit card numbers.

As a remedy to the data breach, Staples is offering free credit monitoring and identity theft insurance.

The data breach appears to be centalized in the Northeast U.S. Staples is headquartered in Framingham, Mass.

How to Avoid ID Theft:

No one is completely immune to these types of attacks by hackers. It is best to look at your credit report as often as you can. You are entitled to one free credit report from each of the three credit bureaus per year. It's a good idea to get one every four months (one from Experian, one from Equifax and one from Transunion).

Examine your statement closely every month. If you do not recognize a charge, call your credit card company about it and find out what it is.

Have you ever been attacked by a hacker or had your identity stolen? How did you get through it? Leave us a comment below and let us know.