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Egghead.com claims hack escape

Graeme Wearden ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 08 Jan 2001 17:54 GMT

US e-tailer Egghead.com claimed Monday that no credit card details had been stolen in a hacking attack December.

Credit card industry experts had feared that the details of over 3.5 million credit cards could have been stolen in the attack on Egghead's servers -- which would have made this the largest ever theft of credit card details via the Internet.

At the time, the e-tailer warned that databases containing customer data could have been affected.

Egghead.com president and chief executive Jeff Sheahan now says that the evidence to date suggests that credit card information was not stolen. In an email sent to all registered customers, Sheahan claims fewer than 7,500 -- or 0.2 per cent -- of the three million plus credit card accounts within the database have been used fraudulently.

"The evidence we have gathered to date suggests that these credit card numbers were not obtained from out site," Sheahan said, although he admitted that it wasn't possible to say whether any of the suspected fraudulent activity was connected to details stolen from Egghead.

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