Del Quentin Wilber reports:
… The Secret Service and FBI are investigating an increasing number of attacks on U.S. retailers’ data, including the massive breach of Target Corp. (TGT:US) last year that affected more than 40 million debit and credit card accounts. Investigators won’t talk about the Target probe. Instead, the Secret Service pointed to O’Neill’s investigation that began in 2010 as an example of how they go about solving such crimes.
The chase for the hackers took three years. It uncovered what federal prosecutors described in court records as a “massive, international computer hacking and credit card data theft scheme.”
The conspirators hit more than 800 U.S. stores from 2009 to 2011, stealing data from in excess of 150,000 credit card accounts and inflicting losses to financial institutions conservatively tallied at $12.5 million, according to interviews with the agent, his supervisors and U.S. Justice Department prosecutors, as well as a review of court filings.
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