“In the largest known case of cybertheft, a computer
intruder stole information on more than 485,000 credit cards from
an e-commerce site and then secretly stored the massive
database on a U.S. government agency’s Web site, MSNBC.com has
learned. Credit card companies notified financial institutions, but
many of the compromised accounts remain open to this day because
the banks neither closed them nor notified customers of the
theft.”
“THE HEIST occurred in January 1999, but only a few details have
previously been made public. The scope of the crime emerged in a
letter dated Dec. 27 from Visa USA to member financial
institutions. Jim Macken, a Secret Service spokesman, confirmed
that the incident had occurred and added some details in an
interview on Thursday. The Visa letter, a copy of which was
provided to MSNBC by a source in the banking industry, quotes
federal authorities as saying that the credit card information –
including expiration dates and cardholder names and addresses – was
stolen from an Internet retail site by a hacker.”