Retailers that fell victim to one of the biggest identity theft crimes on record have learnt that US authorities have charged 11 people from five countries with stealing and selling tens of millions of credit card numbers and data.
41 million credit and debit card numbers were stolen over five years from US retailers including TJX, OfficeMax, Barnes & Noble and Forever 21.
TJX, which owns the TK Maxx chain in the UK, suffered the biggest blow after data from 45.7 million credit cards from customers in Britain, the US and Canada was stolen from its computers going back to 2005.
In January last year, TJX agreed to pay more than US$60 million (£30.7 million) to Visa and Mastercard to settle complaints related to theft after the security breach.
US authorities said a one-time US government informant hacked in to wireless networks, costing consumers, retailers and banks tens of millions of dollars because of fraudulent transactions.
Three people from the US, three from Ukraine, two from China, one from Estonia and one from Belarus were charged. The 11th defendant was unidentified.
The data was sold on to US and European buyers for thousands of dollars.
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