U.S. charges 11 in theft of TJX customer data (40+ million debit/credit card numbers)

[seafan]

Source: Reuters

BOSTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government charged 11 peopleTuesday with stealing tens of millions of credit and debit card numbers from major retailers including TJX Cos Inc (nyse: TJX - news - people ) , in one of the largest reported identity-theft incidents on record.

The U.S. Attorney in Boston said those charged were involved in the theft of more than 40 million credit and debit card numbers from retailers that included: BJ's Wholesale Club (nyse: BJ - news - people ) , OfficeMax (nyse: OMX - news - people ), Boston Market, Barnes & Noble , Sports Authority, Forever 21 and DSW Inc. (nyse: DSW - news - people )

Framingham, Massachusetts-based TJX, which owns the Marshall's and TJ Maxx chains, was the hardest hit by the ring, acknowledging in March 2007 that information from 45.7 million credit cards was stolen from its computers.
The charges target three people from the United States, three from the Ukraine, two from China, one from Estonia and one from Belarus.

The ring, which authorities said was headed by a Miami man named Albert Gonzalez, hacked into the retailers' computer networks to capture the numbers, which they then stored on computer servers in the United States and Eastern Europe.
They then sold the information to people in the United States and Europe, who used it to withdraw tens of thousands of dollars at a time from automated teller machines, authorities said.

Read more: http://www.forbes.com/reuters/feeds/reuters/2008/08/05/2008-08-05T180339Z_01_N05334493_RTRIDST_0_TJX-THEFT-CHARGES-UPDATE-2.html

[seafan]

1. Mukasey: "...the single largest, most complex ID theft ever charged in this country."

Too bad we have no confidence in the integrity of Mr. Mukasey and his Department of Just-Us.

.....

“The scheme is believed to constitute the largest hacking and identity theft case ever prosecuted by the Department of Justice,” the agency said in a news release Tuesday.

“So far as we know, this is the single largest and most complex identity theft case ever charged in this country,” U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey said in a prepared statement.

The government called the crime a “sophisticated conspiracy” that involved tapping into retailers’ wireless networks and using software to identify credit card numbers and then snatch them, along with passwords and other account information.

Charges against the 11 were unsealed by several federal grand juries, including one sitting in Boston, and include conspiracy, computer intrusion, fraud and identity theft.

The alleged perpetrators are accused of selling some numbers and in other cases attaching them to blank cards that then were used to withdraw cash from ATMs.

The alleged ringleader is Albert “Segvec” Gonzalez of Miami. A former confidential informant, according to the government, he faces charges serious enough to carry a sentence of life in prison.

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link

[superconnected]

2. Glad they caught them.