Wireless identity thieves

By Robert Vamosi
Senior editor, CNET Reviews
May 11, 2007

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), the seeds of the nation's largest identity theft operation involving customers of TJX Companies (owners of TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and other discount stores) began in the parking lot outside a Marshalls discount clothing store in St. Paul, Minnesota. Criminal hackers, using a directional antenna, sat in their car and eavesdropped on wireless communications within the store. Over an unspecified period of time, the thieves were able to capture everything from the use of wireless handheld price-checking devices to wireless cash register transactions. But it was the wireless network for the store's main computers that ultimately allowed the criminal hackers into TJX. Once inside that network they were able to download millions of credit card numbers, some which have shown up on carder networks in eight different countries.
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