Creator of TJX sniffer program sentenced

A New York man who admitted to providing the "sniffer" program that was used to hijack credit card numbers as they traversed the networks of a number of merchants, including TJX, was sentenced to two years in prison and three years of supervised release. Stephen Watt, 25, additionally was ordered to pay $171.5 million in restitution, according to a statement last week from the U.S. attorney's office in Boston. Watt pleaded guilty in October 2008 to being part of a cybercrime syndicate that ripped off more than 40 million credit and debit card numbers between 2003 and 2007. Watt's friend and ringleader Alberto Gonzalez is still awaiting sentencing. — DK

More in News

Privacy-bolstering "Apps Act" introduced in House

The bill would provide consumers nationwide with similar protections already enforced by a California law.

Microsoft readies permanent fix for Internet Explorer bug used in energy attacks

Microsoft is prepping a whopper of a security update that will close 33 vulnerabilities, likely including an Internet Explorer (IE) flaw that has been used in targeted website attacks against the U.S. government.

Weakness in Adobe ColdFusion allowed court hackers access to 160K SSNs

Up to 160,000 Social Security numbers and one million driver's license numbers may have been accessed by intruders.