Comment Re:Does K-Mart use the same stuff as Sears? (Score 1) 101
I was thinking that the only possibilities for the theft to happen would have to be either a) there's an administrative access to the POS systems which was breached, kind of similar to what you are saying; or b) there's some manipulation of the physical infrastructre at (a) store(s) in addition to POS malware. For example some malicious host could be inserted in the pathway of communication of the POS systems. My guess is that that isn't too likely.
More likely is something like a), or what you suggest. There was a breach in the firewall, most likely something that was permitted for administrative purposes but turned out to sloppy/insecure.
Too bad with security breaches like this one doesn't generally get an opportunity to look at the topology involved and see what actually happened with the breach. It would be a very interesting thing to study.