One of this country’s largest identity theft scandals has recently been featured on several news sites. Customers of stores owned by TJX Companies (including: TJ Maxx, Marshalls, BJ’s Wholesale Club, Office Max, Boston Market, Barnes & Noble, Sports Authority, Forever 21 and DSW) have been victimized while shopping in these stores. Apparently, the stores have used wireless internet connections to transmit transactions to credit card processors. Identity thieves are outside in an automobile in the parking lot with the equipment they need to capture the details of the transaction. The store’s main computer was also on the wireless network which allowed these thieves to steal over 45 million credit card numbers over a two year period.

Although the U.S. Justice Department has filed criminal charges against 11 people so far, the possibility of these numbers being sold to others in chat rooms is still very likely. This operation involved people from various countries, so it is much bigger than just a national data breach. Criminals took stolen numbers and created new cards by encoding these numbers on blank cards which were used to withdraw huge sums of money in a short period of time. It is also alleged that these thieves used different web based currency both in the US and in other countries.

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