TJX hacker sent to jail for 20 years after stealing 40 million credit cards

Albert Gonzalez, the 28-year-old college drop out who was the mastermind of a hacking ring that stole over 40 million credit and debit card numbers from retailers including TJ Maxx, Barnes & Noble and BJ’s Wholesale Club, has been sent to jail for 20 years.

Miami-based Gonzalez, who went by the handle of “Sevgec”, was the ringleader behind what has been described as the single largest and most complex hacking and identity theft that has ever been prosecuted.

Gonzalez and a team of “wardriving” accomplices initially exploited insecure corporate wireless networks, gaining access to the communications of several retailers. Reports emerged in 2007, for instance, that the TJX data breach occurred because of weak WEP encryption in use at two of its Marshalls stores in Miami.

Once they had gained access, the hackers were able to…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus industry having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, on Mastodon at @[email protected], or drop him an email.