Criminals have stolen payment card information of at least 45 million cards used to complete transactions by customers of TJX, one of the major US retailers that owns UK outlet TJ Maxx. According to the retailer's statement it did not know the scale of the theft and the impact on its customers.

TJX officials said that the information theft may also affect UK and Ireland based customers. Fortunately, the three-quarters of the payment cards had already expired and cannot be used by criminals.

Allegedly there was a security breach, where hackers stole important data files that stored customers' payment information. The files in question have been accessed and stolen from a UK based computer in Watford, Hertfordshire and Massachusetts over a longer period of time.

Association of Payment Clearing Services officials said that fraudulent transactions would be reverted and all customers who fell victims of a fraud will get the money refunded. The company which discovered the information theft is still asking questions about the possible cause of the attack.

It is believed that access to the software decryption tool could be the probable cause of the security breach. There's no information available how many attackers took part in this criminal act, and the exact number of affected customers is not known either.

TJX warned many of its shops could be affected because hackers were operating from many locations, in particular US and Puerto Rico.

TJX customers are advised to check their debit and credit cards statements.