TJX Loses Data on 45.7 Million Credit/Debit Transactions To Hackers

Imagine Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons saying these words: "Worst data breach ever!"  Those are words that are likely going through the heads of executives at TJX Companies.  This is the parent corporation for TJ Maxx, Marshall's, and several other stores where at least 45.7 million credit and debit numbers were stolen.  Executives at CardSystem Solutions are breathing a slight sigh of relief as someone has finally taken the crown from them.  They lost 40 million records in 2005.  The information came in a filing with the SEC.  According to a story in Forbes, the FTC is investigating the case.

The breach or breaches occurred between July 2005 and ended in December 2006.  TJX hired General Dynamics and IBM to investigate.  The one cryptic note in stories on the data breach is that no one at the companies knows exactly what specific data was stolen, alluding to unnamed technology used by the hacker.  What's up with that?  It will be interesting to see what details come out of the investigation explaining this.