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NEW YORK (Reuters) – The obloquy and e-mails of customers of Citigroup Inc and another super U.S. companies, as well as College Board students, were unclothed in a large and growing accumulation severance after a computer coder penetrated online marketer Epsilon.

In what could be one of the large such breaches in U.S. history, a diverse track of companies that did business with Epsilon stepped nervy over the weekend to monish customers whatever of their electronic aggregation could hit been exposed.

Drugstore Walgreen, Video functionary TiVo Inc, assign bill pledgee Capital One Financial Corp and teleshopping consort HSN Inc every added their obloquy to a itemize of targets that also includes whatever of the nation's maximal banks.

The obloquy and electronic contacts of whatever students related with the U.S.-based College Board -- which represents whatever 5,900 colleges, universities and schools -- were also potentially compromised.

No personal business aggregation such as assign game or social section drawing appeared to be exposed, according to the consort statements and e-mails to customers.

Epsilon, an online marketing organisation of Alliance Data Systems Corp, said on weekday that a mortal right the consort hacked into whatever of its clients' client files. The vendor sends more than 40 billion e-mail ads and offers annually, commonly to grouping who register for a company's website or who wage their e-mail addresses patch shopping.

"We scholarly from our e-mail provider, Epsilon, that restricted aggregation most you was accessed by an unauthorized individualist or individuals," HSN, also an e-commerce operator, said in an e-mail to customers on Sunday.

"This aggregation included your name and e-mail come and did not allow whatever business or another sensitive information. We change it was essential to inform you of this incident as presently as possible."

Citigroup client obloquy and whatever assign bill customers' e-mail addresses -- but no statement aggregation -- were conception of the accumulation breach, the third-largest U.S. slope said on Saturday.

The College Board, which administers the SAT admissions tests, on Saturday warned students most the severance and asked them to be cautious most receiving "links or attachments from unknown ordinal parties," according to digit e-mails reviewed by Reuters.

The not-for-profit methodicalness is in occurrence with more than 7 meg students, according to its website. It did not immediately convey calls for comment.

PROBING FOR ANSWERS

Law enforcement polity are investigating the breach, though it was blurred on Sunday how whatever customers or students had been exposed. Epsilon is also hunting into what went wrong.

"While we are cooperating with polity and doing a complete investigation, we cannot feature anything else," said Epsilon spokeswoman Jessica Simon. "We can't support whatever impacted or non-impacted clients, or wage a itemize (of companies) at this saucer in time."

Capital One, which also runs a bank, and Walgreens, the maximal U.S. drugstore, said the Epsilon coder accessed its client e-mail addresses, but no personally classifiable information.

TiVo, a maker of digital recording recorders, said the aggregation that was obtained was restricted to e-mail addresses and clients' prototypal names.

The incident comes threesome eld after hackers penetrated Heartland Payment Systems, a assign and entry bill processor, in one of the large identity-theft cases in U.S. history.

In that case, disreputable coder Albert Gonzalez led a ring that stole more than 40 meg commercialism bill numbers, and was after sentenced to 20 eld in prison.

On Friday, JPMorgan Chase & Co, the second-largest U.S. bank, and Kroger Co, the large U.S. supermarket operator, said that whatever customers were unclothed as conception of the Epsilon accumulation breach.

Citigroup announced that it had been affected on Saturday evening. Spokesman Sean Kevelighan said the slope started revelation its customers of the severance on weekday finished a link on its website.

Some of Epsilon's another clients allow Verizon Communications Inc, Blackstone Group LP's Hilton Hotels, Kraft Foods Inc, and AstraZeneca.

(Reporting by Jonathan Spicer and Maria Aspan, editing by Maureen Bavdek, Diane Craft and Gunna Dickson.)

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