Identify theft

Federal prosecutors announced Tuesday that they had broken up the largest hacking and identity theft ring in history.

Eleven people were charged with stealing more than 41 million credit and debit card numbers.

By targeting major retailers such as Barnes & Noble and T.J. Maxx, the thieves found technical weaknesses in the businesses' wireless networks. They acquired programs from overseas to tap into the retailers' networks for processing credit cards.

In this way, they were able to collect customers' PINs and debit and credit numbers. The conspirators sold credit card numbers online and printed other stolen numbers on blank cards to withdraw thousands of dollars from ATM machines.

One alleged leader of the ring, Albert Gonzalez of Miami, was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury in Boston. He was charged with computer fraud, wire fraud, aggravated identify theft, conspiracy and other counts.

Two other defendants are from the United States, but others are from Estonia, Ukraine, China and Belarus.

Others in the ring were arrested for selling credit card numbers on the black market — Maksym Yastremskiy of Ukraine and Aleksandr Suvorov of Estonia. The former is thought to be a major figure in stolen credit card information.

Federal officials do not know yet how much money was stolen. But Mr. Gonzalez was asked to forfeit more than $1.6 million, among other assets. That should give an idea of how profitable the operation had become.

Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey said of the case: "Computer networks and the Internet are an indispensable part of the world economy. But even as they provide extraordinary opportunities for legitimate commerce and communication, they also provide extraordinary opportunities for criminals."

Federal authorities were tipped off by T.J. Maxx, the discount clothes retailer that reported its systems had been breached by hackers. Such sophisticated criminal networks require constant federal vigilance.

Acquiring 41 million card numbers through retailers is an alarming achievement. As Toby Weiss, an executive of a database security firm, told the New York Times, "In this economy, we can't have people afraid to spend."