The US brought criminal charges on Monday over the alleged theft of account details linked to 130m credit cards, a case of identity theft that far exceeds anything of its kind that has ever come to light before.
Millions of European cardholders are among those whose cards were compromised in the fraud, according to one security expert, with the customers of a single unidentified UK card issuer accounting for one in 10 of the potential victims.
The scale of the security lapse came to light as the Department of Justice charged Albert Gonzalez of Miami with two counts of conspiracy. Two other, unnamed computer hackers who were said to be living “in or near Russia” were also charged.