The world's largest card data theft

Information of at least 45.7 million customer credit and debit cards has been stolen and it is believed that this is the biggest "hack" identity ever.

These are TJX customers, retail stores with 2,500 member stores worldwide. Information about the identity theft was revealed two months ago, but at that time the number of "victims" was not published correctly, and much lower than the number above.

According to TJX's disclosure with the US Securities Commission on March 29, the process of stealing data of 45.7 million cards began to take place from January 2003 and lasted until November 23, 2003. However, during the period of November 24, 2003 to June 28, 2004, TJX could not count how many cards were abusing information to conduct illegal transactions.

According to TJX, about three-fourths of the 45.6 million cards have expired at the time of theft, or the stolen information does not include security code data in the magnetic stripe of the card. The case caused the bank to reissue the card after discovering the use of stolen information in Switzerland and Hong Kong.

With the number of 45.7 million stolen cards, TJX surpassed the previous "record" of CardSystems (a card issuer) with 40 million cards hacked by hackers.

It is known that TJX is the parent company of some famous stores like TJ Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods and AJ Wright (USA), Winners and HomeSense (Canada), and TK Maxx (UK).