TJX: credit-card data may have been stolen (TJ Maxx, Marshalls)

http://www.boston.com/business/ticker/2007/01/tjx_creditcard.html

TJX Cos. said today it discovered the theft of credit-card and debit card information from its systems, a breach that could affect a broad swath of customers of TJ Maxx, Marshalls and other stores.

The Framingham retailer, which has 2,500 outlets, said it doesn't know how much data was compromised by the break-in, though one banking official said potentially millions of cardholders could be affected.

Data breaches are becoming an increasing threat to consumers and payments systems that handle millions of transactions per day. TJX's case is unusual in that many cases tracked by privacy advocates involve data that was inadvertently lost or left unshielded. In contrast, TJX said it had discovered in the middle of December that it "suffered an unauthorized intrusion'' into the parts of its computer system that process and store details of customer purchases.

TJX said the intrusion involved the portion of its network that handles credit card, debit card, check, and merchandise return functions.

Visa has notifed at least eight banks in Massachusetts about the breach, said Bruce Spitzer, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Bankers Association, and the number could go higher as the group finishes a survey of its 205 member banks.